Capital Square OZ Fund Issues Special Investor Distribution

Capital Square's first development project, an 80-unit Class A multifamily property in Richmond, Virginia dubbed “INK," has secured long-term financing.

Capital Square, a sponsor of tax-advantaged real estate investments, reported that their first development project, an 80-unit Class A multifamily property in Richmond, Virginia dubbed “INK,” has secured long-term financing from USAA Life Insurance Company after achieving property stabilization.

As a result, investors in Capital Square’s project-specific opportunity zone fund, CSRA Opportunity Zone Fund I LLC, will receive a special distribution that represents a 53 percent return of equity.

Built in a qualified opportunity zone in the Richmond neighborhood of Scott’s Addition, INK is an 80,000-square-foot property that includes nearly 2,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. The property is the first of three Capital Square development projects that comprise Scott’s Collection, a group of multifamily communities within the Scott’s Addition neighborhood. Construction on INK began in the second quarter of 2020, was completed in January 2022, and was 100 percent occupied roughly five months after construction was completed.

“The Scott’s Addition neighborhood of Richmond is quickly emerging as one of the city’s most popular neighborhoods, with soaring demand for quality multifamily communities like INK and one of the area’s highest occupancy rates,” said Whit Huffman, chief strategy and investment officer. “The success of INK and its related opportunity fund comes as no surprise, and we are extremely pleased to have delivered this high-caliber development property to its residents while also providing an early distribution to investors that far exceeds our pro forma projections.”

The private placement memorandum provided to CSRA Opportunity Fund I investors had anticipated a special distribution totaling a 36 percent return of equity upon securing long-term financing at the conclusion of property construction and lease-up.

The special distribution is intended to provide investors with funds to pay the tax due on their deferred gains, which are taxable as a part of investors’ 2026 tax returns. Capital Square said that the special distribution increased to 53 percent “due to the exceptional performance of the property.”

“In just three years, Capital Square has planned, constructed, permanently financed and leased 100 percent of the apartments in Ink at Scott’s Collection,” said Louis Rogers, founder and chief executive officer. “The project has been delivered on time, on budget and has been exceptionally well received in the market despite construction cost volatility and procurement challenges. This is a phenomenal result for investors in spite of a global pandemic that shut down major portions of the economy, along with unprecedented inflation and shortages of labor and material…”

Capital Square currently has three other multifamily developments under construction in the Scott’s Addition opportunity zone that will deliver a total of 559 apartment homes by 2023, with another 350 units planned for the neighborhood. These projects include VIV and GEM, the remaining two Scott’s Collection multifamily projects.

Construction on VIV was completed in July and is currently open to residents, while GEM is in the pre-leasing stage and will open to residents in the fall. Also included is The Otis, a 350-unit joint development with Greystar that is expected to complete its first phase of construction during the fourth quarter of 2022.

Since 2019, Capital Square has initiated more than $440 million in total development value across seven opportunity zone developments in the Southeast. Among these is CSRA Opportunity Zone Fund VII LLC, which seeks to raise $41.4 million from accredited investors to fund the development of an additional multifamily development in the Scott’s Addition neighborhood.

Opportunity zones were created to stimulate long-term private investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide. Conceived as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, opportunity zone funds are intended to help foster economic growth by providing tax benefits to incentivize private investments in designated opportunity zones.

Capital Square is a national real estate firm specializing in tax-advantaged real estate investments, including Delaware statutory trusts for Section 1031 exchanges, qualified opportunity zone funds for tax deferral and exclusion and a real estate investment trust (REIT). In recent years the company has become a developer of mixed-use multifamily properties in the southeastern US, with eight current projects totaling approximately 2,000 apartment units with a total development cost in excess of $600 million. Since 2012, Capital Square has completed more than $6 billion in transaction volume.

The firm’s related entities provide due diligence, acquisition, loan sourcing, property/asset management, and disposition, for high-net-worth investors, private equity firms, family offices and institutional investors.

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