AEW Buys Another Merrill Gardens Property, Now in Lafayette for $47.3MM
Following a September purchase of Merrill Gardens at Campbell, an upscale senior residence development located at 2075 S. Winchester Blvd., Boston-based AEW Capital Management spent another $47.3 million to acquire the 80-unit Merrill Gardens complex located at 3454 Mt Diablo Blvd. in Lafayette. That comes to a per unit sale price of $591,250. The sale closed on November 3, 2016, according to public documents.
The Campbell site cost AEW $88 million, or nearly $603,000 per unit.
The seller was Seattle-based Merrill Gardens, a privately held operator of senior living homes across western United States and Alabama and Georgia. The company operates 9 additional facilities in California, including three facilities in Northern California in Gilroy, Lafayette and San Jose.
AEW has been an active player in senior housing, and in April of this year the company launched its latest senior housing fund, AEW Senior Housing Investors III, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. One of its investors is the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, which made a $150 million commitment to the fund earlier this year.
On the Lafayette purchase, public documents indicate that Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company provided a $31 million loan for the purchase of the asset, which matures in September of 2023.
The development is a three-story structure that was completed only 2014. It features access to the Lamorinda area shops (nestled between Berkeley and Walnut Creek), restaurants, art galleries, the Lafayette Library and Learning Center, as well as access to BART.
