Austin Firm Waymaker Snatches Downtown San Antonio Apartments

An Austin investor scooped up a multifamily asset in downtown San Antonio after it lingered on the market for over six months.

WayMaker Ventures has purchased the 191-unit Jones & Rio complex, at 111 West Jones Avenue, from a venture of New York-based Benefit Street Partners and New Jersey-based Strategic Properties of America, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

WayMaker took out a $13 million loan from Horizon Bank to facilitate the transaction, Bexar County records show. The loan amount comes to a little over $68,000 per unit.

The property’s taxable value is $44 million, according to the Bexar Central Appraisal District.

JLL’s Robert Arzola, Ryan McBride, Robert Wooten and Christopher Roper marketed the complex, which went up for sale in October. Spanning 55,400 square feet, it benefits from a partial municipal tax abatement under the city’s former Center City Housing Initiative program, according to JLL marketing materials.

Benefit Street and Strategic Properties are also trying to sell the 260-unit Augusta Flats apartments. That downtown property, at 714 McCullough Avenue, hit the market in September of last year.

Jones & Rio joins a string of multifamily assets to change hands in the Alamo City this year, several of which came out of distress.

An LLC with ties to LoanCore Capital, the lender that foreclosed on the 285-unit Solara complex in November, recently bought the North Side property for $21.3 million, under $75,000 per unit, via auction. The Solara was previously owned by embattled syndicator GVA.

In another distressed sale, Lubbock-based Madera Residential in February acquired the 352-unit Summit at Salado Creek from Benefit Street Partners, the lender that recently took the property via deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. The previous owner, Colorado-based DB Capital Management, defaulted on a $45 million variable-rate loan that Medera assumed.

—Quinn Donoghue