Summerville affordable housing units sell for $26.3 million

Listen to this article

Canebreak Apartments, an affordable housing community in Summerville, has been acquired via a $26.3 million long-term ground lease by a Los Angeles and New York-based company that plans to rehabilitate it.

Standard Communities, the affordable housing division of Standard Cos., plans to renovate the 120 housing units at 1300 Central Ave. without displacing any residents, the company said in a news release.

“Standard Communities continues to actively look for opportunities to preserve affordable housing in South Carolina and across the Southeast,” Tommy Attridge, director of Southeast production for Standard Communities, said. “This transaction and our planned improvements ensure Canebreak Apartments is in excellent condition to provide high-quality affordable housing for decades.”

In total there are eight garden-style buildings on the 8.34-acre apartment complex that are covered by a Project-Based Section 8 HAP contract. The property will undergo rehabilitation to modernize the apartment interiors, upgrade the building systems and add amenities such as a business center and fitness facility, the company said. 

Jeffrey Jaeger, principal and co-founder of Standard, said affordable housing is direly needed in the area.

“This is an opportunity for Standard to preserve affordable housing in the greater Charleston region and to upgrade and modernize the property in the process, which will greatly benefit the residents,” he said. “We have worked closely with S.C. Housing and HUD to design the property’s next phase, and look forward to realizing those plans in the near future.”

The transaction is in partnership with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, S.C. State Housing Finance and Development Authority and the nonprofit Housing On Merit. It was financed with tax-exempt debt and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits arranged in partnership with the S.C. Housing.

Established in 2008, Standard Companies has a portfolio of more than 12,600 apartments, 9,200 of which are affordable housing units. To date, the company has completed more than $2.1 billion affordable housing acquisitions and rehabilitation projects nationwide.