Becovic Management Group of Indiana bought more Atlantic Beach property last week, just north of vacant land it bought in December for a luxury apartment development called Ocean Blue Apartments.
Through BMG Atlantica LLC, Becovic paid $7.8 million Friday for the Atlantica Apartments community at 2760 Mayport Road.
Bradley Coe, director of Multifamily Investment Services with Colliers International Northeast Florida, said the multifamily inventory in the Mayport area continues to perform well, despite most of the conventional communities having been developed in the 1980s.
Atlantica was developed in 1987 and completely renovated in 2006-07, Coe said in a news release.
The $78,000-per-unit sales price was higher than the $74,229 average for apartment community sales in 2015, according to Colliers’ annual multifamily report.
The average rent at Atlantica of $1.02 a square foot is at the lower end of the rents for comparative multifamily properties in the Atlantic Beach market, according to an analysis by Coe.
Average per-square-foot rental rates for the better performing communities range from $1 to $1.15, he said.
Miami Beach-based Palatine Capital Partners Management LLC, through PAL MF Atlantic Beach LLC, sold the Atlantica community. Coe and Douglas Blair, managing director of Multifamily Investment Services at Colliers, brokered the transaction.
The property comprises six two-story buildings that each containing 16 units and a one-story building of four units.
In December, Becovic Management Group bought a 15.5-acre vacant site just south of the Atlantica community on the east side of Florida A1A.
The news release said BMG intends to start construction in April on the Ocean Blue Apartments. That community will comprise 156 Class A units among seven two-story buildings. It will offer high-end amenities and 28 parking garages.
“The Ocean Blue community should be well received for those in the rental pool within that sector due to its new construction, high-end amenities and its proximity to Hanna Park,” Coe said in a statement.
The 2015 industry report found just below 1,000 multifamily units were under construction in Jacksonville at year-end and 1,500 more were proposed for construction. Demand for new units was expected to significantly exceed supply growth this year and into the first half of 2017.
Colliers reported the vacancy rate in Jacksonville’s multifamily market stood at 5.8 percent at year-end, and it was a tighter 4 percent or lower in the St. Augustine, Mandarin and South submarkets.
Last year, 49 apartment communities, comprising 11,222 units, were sold in Jacksonville for $833 million.
Rental rates grew about 4 percent over the year to an average $912, or 93 cents a square foot.
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