The Venus at Manchester Apartments are three storeys and stretch almost an entire block facing Hull Street. (Photo by Mike Platania)
More money from out of town has taken over real estate in Richmond, this time an apartment complex along Manchester’s main trade corridor.
New York-based Northway Equities bought The Venus at Manchester apartments for $ 7.15 million last month.
The 68-unit apartment building with retail space on the ground floor is located at 1420 Hull Street, adjacent to the Hull Street branch of the Richmond Public Library.
The deal is the first in the Richmond area for Northway Equities, which was founded in 2016. The company uses investor capital to purchase multi-family, mixed-use and healthcare properties, primarily in its hometown from New York.
Yekusiel Sebrow
Managing partner Yekusiel Sebrow said Northway has started to diversify into other markets.
“We were looking for markets that were having robust growth and we noticed that the Richmond market is on the rise,” Sebrow said. “We have seen that the city is investing in itself.
The deal was reached on July 26, according to city records. The seller was an entity related to Florida-based Eastside Equities that had owned the apartments since 2018 when it purchased them for $ 3.5 million. The property was recently appraised by the city at $ 6 million.
Sebrow said that at the time of the sale, the apartments were over 90 percent leased, but the commercial space in the building has a higher vacancy rate.
“The area is underserved by retail out there. We’re actually going to invest some money in the commercial space and try to attract tenants there, ”Sebrow said, adding that they also plan to gradually renovate the apartments.
Sebrow declined to disclose the size of Northway’s portfolio, but said they could not be made in Richmond.
“We are looking to expand into the market,” he said. “We’re looking at a bunch of opportunities out there right now.”
Meanwhile, a few blocks north along Hull Street, hundreds of more apartments will soon come online at Lynx Ventures’ The Current, which has also signed a deal to open a brewery in Norfolk in development.
