Chattanooga’s booming Southside has attracted a record purchase price for a Chattanooga apartment complex from a San Francisco-based investment group.
Hamilton Zanze, a privately held real estate investment company in California, bought the Bluebird Row Apartments behind the Chattanooga Choo Choo earlier this month for $63.15 million from the company that built the 283-unit complex two years ago, according to property deed filings with the Hamilton County Register of Deeds.
The purchase price is equal to $223,145 for each of the apartments, which is also a record high for any major apartment complex sold in Chattanooga. The 306,411 square feet of apartments grouped in four different buildings include one, two- and three-bedroom units that currently rent for anywhere from $1,249 up to $2,334 per month.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based Choo Choo Residences LLC, a subsidiary of LIV Development LLC, built and opened the $45 million complex along Passenger Street in late 2018. The developers, who previously built the CityGreen at North Shore apartments off Dayton Boulevard in Chattanooga, paid $5.25 million for the site behind the Choo Choo where passenger trains once entered the 1908 train station before such service ended a generation ago.
Adam Kinsey, the son of former Chattanooga mayor Jon Kinsey and president of the Chattanooga Choo Choo, led the sale of the property, which was once used to house Track 29. Kinsey said the record high sales price for the Bluebird Apartments this month “is a testament to the appeal and growth in the Southside and the quality of these apartments.”