This two property portfolio consists of 176 Units and 364 Beds just off the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Both Grant Street & South Street are within 2 blocks of campus and are 100% pre-leased for 2016-17. This is the rare opportunity to acquire two trophy assets pedestrian to a Big 10 university with a value add component.
Grant Street Station was built first, opening in 2013. This property consists of 1, 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms units, all with bed-bath parity. Amenities include a rooftop swimming pool, sundeck and hot tub, 24-hour fitness center, tanning bed, conference room and gated garage parking. While the apartments are nearly fully leased, there is 3,500 square feet of vacant retail space on the ground floor. A new owner could source a tenant for that space at a going rate of $16 per square foot NNN or, more likely, convert that space to 3 lofted studio units. At an approximate rental rate of $1,300 and a project cost of $60,000 per unit, the return on investment in the first year would exceed 25%.
South Street Station opened just this last school year and is 100% pre-leased for 2016-17. There are 1, 3 and 4 bedroom units at South Street, all with bed-bath parity, but the majority of the units are 1 bedrooms, typically the easiest unit type to lease. This property is in an absolutely irreplaceable location and includes garage parking and a 23 kilowatt solar panel array on the roof, the only system of its kind in the area.
Asking rents at both properties were increased 7% this year with actual leased rates increasing 3-5%. Purdue has limited off campus housing close to campus, the two competing properties are both fully leased for this year as well. Grant Street and South Street are offered free and clear of existing debt.
A bastion of higher education since the first bricks were laid in 1871, Purdue University has earned its sterling reputation as a prominent and productive research institution. Indeed, the prestige that the Purdue name evokes across the world is self evident in the over 9,000 international students enrolled at the flagship campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, this past fall. While the demographics may be shifting, Purdue is and has been a beacon for inquisitive and active minds; those who invent and create, those who strive to engage in their communities, those who wish to change the world for the better.
While Purdue is strong across all academic fields, its programs in engineering - or, as Abraham Lincoln more gracefully put it, “mechanical arts” - are superlative and have been lauded across the globe. Purdue perennially ranks in the top 50 of universities in the world in each of the major engineering sub-disciplines - chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical - according to the QS World University Rankings. In 2015, U.S. News & World Report named the Purdue Graduate Engineering program the 6th best in the country and it has stayed in that publication’s top ten for over a decade.
Despite all the academic rigors and pressures associated with studying at a top caliber university, the students and faculty still manage to find the time to let their hair down. Students at Purdue participate in more than 900 student organizations that cover a wide variety of interests. Like any institution with a 150 year history, the community at Purdue has a number of popular traditions. One such tradition - the Big Bass Drum - is on display when the Purdue men’s football team competes. Known as the "world's largest drum," it stands 10 feet tall on its field carriage and is handled by a crew of four band members with two beaters. The drum draws attention wherever it goes from fans who want their picture taken with the instrument. It still has its original 1921 frame, which is eight feet in diameter and nearly four feet between its two heads.
