Related Group Sells Boynton Apartments to Smith & Henzy

Smith & Henzy Advisory Group bought an affordable senior apartment complex in Boynton Beach for $53 million.

The Pérez family’s Coconut Grove-based Related Group sold the 240-unit garden-style Boynton Bay Apartments, which is restricted for residents 55 and older, at 1785 Northeast Fourth Street, according to records and real estate database Vizzda. Delray Beach-based Smith & Henzy took out a $10.7 million loan and a $47.3 million loan from the Palm Beach County Housing Finance Authority.

The sale breaks down to $220,833 per unit.

Records show Smith & Henzy is starting renovations of Boynton Bay Apartments. The complex also uses the address 499 Boynton Bay Circle.

Completed in 1991 on 21.4 acres, Boynton Bay Apartments consists of 18 two-story buildings and a pool, Vizzda records show. Related, led by Jorge Pérez and his sons, Jon Paul and Nicholas Pérez, paid $48 million for the complex in 2022, records show.

Led by Darren Smith and Timothy Henzy, Smith & Henzy is an affordable housing developer and investor that has a portfolio of $1.6 billion of financed and developed projects, according to its website. Since 2014, the firm has preserved or created 6,000 affordably priced apartments and has a current portfolio of 1,800 rentals, with 2,000 in the development pipeline.

Last year, Smith & Henzy landed a $42.3 million construction loan for the 150-unit St. Joseph Manor II Apartments, an affordable complex under construction on 8.3 acres at 1200 Northwest Sixth Avenue in Pompano Beach. Smith & Henzy leases the land from the Archdiocese of Miami.

Investors and developers are betting on South Florida’s affordable housing market. The tri-county region faces a shortage of below-market rate units due to an influx of well-heeled out-of-staters who created unprecedented apartment demand that led to record rent hikes. In a push to alleviate the affordable housing shortage, Florida lawmakers approved the Live Local Act, which incentivizes construction of below-market rate units by giving developers wiggle room on municipal zoning restrictions and allowing them tax breaks.

Investors betting on South Florida’s affordable housing include New York-based Related Companies, led by Steve Ross. Last year, it paid $48.2 million for the 320-unit, garden-style Sorrento complex at 8991-9577 Southwest 41st Street in Miramar.

In the Cypress Creek area of Fort Lauderdale, Dallas-based Trinsic Residential Group plans a 12-story, 340-unit affordable apartment building on a parking lot next to the Westin hotel northeast of the intersection of Cypress Creek Road and I-95.