Real estate investor and philanthropist Jay Shidler, who once was Hawaii’s richest person, bought the Sealofts at Boynton Village apartments for $153 million.
His family office, The Shidler Group, bought the complex at 600 Sealofts Drive from an affiliate of Boston-based Rockpoint Group, records show.
The buyer immediately executed a lease for the Sealofts land to an entity also tied to Shidler Group.
This is in line with the Honolulu-based company’s strategy that intertwines real estate investment with philanthropy. Shidler Group puts the land of many of its multifamily properties in irrevocable trusts that then donate the ground-lease income to educational and other institutions, according to the firm’s website. Shidler Group has donated $2.1 billion from ground-lease income, including to the University of Washington’s law and medicine schools, the University of Hawaii Foundation, and the University of Hawaii’s business school, which is named after Shidler.
In 2013, Shidler ranked as the richest person in Hawaii with a net worth of $700 million, according to Business Insider.
The 433-unit Sealofts has four buildings on 19.4 acres, property records show. The deal breaks down to $353,349 per unit.
Sealofts offers one- to three-bedroom units, as well as townhouses with up to 1,700 square feet of space, according to its website. Units feature wood-style floors, stainless steel appliances and quartz countertops. The pet-friendly community has a pool, gym, yoga and Zen spaces, electric vehicle charging stations, sand volleyball court, storage spaces and a conference room.
Apartments.com lists monthly rents from $1,825 to $3,800.
Rockpoint Group, which built the community in a joint venture with Houston-based Morgan Group in 2020, scored a $66 million construction loan for Sealofts in 2019, after the joint venture purchased the site for $19.5 million in 2018.
Rockpoint Group is a real estate private equity firm co-founded by Keith Gelb and Bill Walton, according to its website. Morgan Group is a family owned firm that focuses on multifamily, developing or buying more than $3 billion of apartment properties consisting of over 20,000 units, according to its website. Led by Michael and Philip Morgan, the company currently owns or manages more than 10,000 units across Texas, California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida.
Shidler founded Shidler Group in 1972. The company has made debt and equity investments in more than 2,000 properties nationwide and has started five New York Stock Exchange-listed corporations that collectively have issued more than $20 billion of debt and equity securities, according to the firm’s website. Shidler Group also has a platform to invest in cost-burdened markets with a shortage of affordable housing.
The South Florida multifamily market has been booming, fueled by high demand that has pushed up rental rates, pricing out low- to middle-income locals.
In other recent Boynton Beach apartment deals, Blackstone bought the One Boynton apartment complex in September for $171 million.