Birge & Held Buys Miami-Dade Multifamily Project For $55M

Birge & Held doubled its South Florida footprint with the $55.1 million acquisition of a 175-unit apartment complex in northwest Miami-Dade County.

The Indianapolis-based multifamily real estate investment firm paid $315,029 per unit for The Lakeridge at the Moors at 17200 Northwest 64th Avenue in the unincorporated neighborhood of Country Club, records show. Birge & Held, led by CEO J. Taggart Birge and company President Andrew Held, obtained two loans for $46.9 million and $5.8 million, respectively, from United Fidelity Bank to finance the purchase.

San Francisco-based Stockbridge Capital Group held the 7-acre Lakeridge site for almost 25 years and sold it for nearly five times more than its purchase price. In 2000, Stockbridge paid $10 million for the four-building community completed in 1991, records show.

Lakeridge offers a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments with monthly rents between $2,693 and $3,186, according to Apartments.com.

Birge & Held owns more than 125,000 apartments in more than 125 rental communities across 14 states, including Florida, according to the firm’s website. The company jumped into the South Florida multifamily market in December with its $91.5 million purchase of The Pomelo, a 259-unit apartment complex in Miami Gardens, records show.

The multifamily sector in the tri-county region has boomed since the early days of the pandemic as migrations from out-of-state increased exponentially from non-Floridians relocating to the Sunshine State to escape Covid lockdowns. In the second quarter, the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach markets experienced more than 16 percent rent growth year-over-year, according to a recent CoStar report. Those gains were the second, third and fourth highest in the nation behind Orlando.

Multifamily investors remain bullish in South Florida due to the region’s high-octane performance. AvalonBay Communities recently paid $295 million for two Miramar apartment complexes with a total of 650 units. In July, Miami-based The Estate Companies sold the Soleste Grand Central apartment building near Brightline’s downtown Miami station for $181 million.