Denver REIT pays more than $200 million for downtown Tampa apartments
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 3, 2022

Manor Riverwalk, the luxury apartment community built on the site of the former Tampa Tribune, has sold to a Denver investment firm in a record-breaking deal.

An entity linked to Denver-based Ares Real Estate Income Trust paid $225 million for the 400-unit Manor Riverwalk in a deal that closed Dec. 28, according to Hillsborough County property records. Miami's Related Group, the property's original developer, was the seller.

AREIT assumed a $117 million mortgage from Regions Bank as part of the transaction, according to property records.

Chris Chadbourne and Brian Moulder of Walker & Dunlop Investment Sales represented Related in the transaction.

The purchase price breaks down to $562,500 per apartment, crushing the record pricing Related set for market-rate apartments in Tampa Bay with the sale of Icon Central in St. Petersburg. That property sold for $479,076 per apartment in August 2021.

That level of pricing is an endorsement of the Tampa Bay economy. Apartment investors base their offers on projections of job creation and population growth — and to pay more than a half-million dollars per key signals that AREIT has long-term confidence in this market. The Manor Riverwalk sale caps off a year of banner multifamily sales between the downtowns of St. Petersburg and Tampa, from Icon Central to Anchor Riverwalk to the Channel Club in downtown Tampa.

The development of Manor Riverwalk was a high-profile project. Related put the Tribune's real estate under contract in early 2015, more than a year before the newspaper was sold to the Tampa Bay Times, which purchased and immediately closed its longtime competitor in May 2016. The demolition of the newspaper building was delayed by contamination from the commercial printing press as well as a riverfront roost on the property that was frequented by ibises and other birds.