Follow-up phase to Metropolis at Innsbrook apartments underway – Richmond BizSense
The Verve is planned for 5 stories and 298 units and will complement the neighboring Metropolis at Innsbrook. (Courtesy John B. Levy & Co.)
With financing in hand, construction crews recently began digging in at the site of the next and final phase of a sizable Innsbrook apartment development.
The Verve, a sister complex to the previously completed Metropolis at Innsbrook next door, is underway at 4480 Richmond Park Lane.
Virginia Beach-based Robinson Development started groundwork on the nearly 6-acre site earlier this month after closing on financing for the $86 million project.
The Verve is planned for 5 stories and 298 units and will complement the neighboring Metropolis, which houses 402 units and was completed by Robinson in 2023.
Movement at The Verve site follows Robinson’s sale of the Metropolis complex last summer to Boston-based Foxfield and New York’s Park Row Equity Partners for $98 million, or $244,000 per door.
The Verve will house a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, the first of which are expected to be ready for residents sometime in 2027.
KBS is the project’s contractor. Saunders + Crouse is the architect. The property will be managed by Drucker + Falk.
Financing for the project was arranged by locally based John B. Levy & Co.
The capital package involved a mix of debt and equity, including a $57 million loan from Atlantic Union Bank and $15 million in equity from an unidentified institutional investor. JBLCo and another unidentified party also provided equity to round out the deal. JBLCo was also an equity investor in Metropolis.
Bram Levy
Bram Levy, a principal at JBLCo, said the financing is enough to get The Verve through construction, lease-up and to a point of stabilization.
Levy said he sees the project’s capital structure as an example of bucking the recent trend of uncertainty around financing for ground-up, market-rate apartment developments in certain areas due to worries about oversupply and stagnant rent growth.
“A lot of people have been saying for the last 24 months that multifamily projects don’t pencil unless you have something special or unique,” Levy said. “I think this is kind of the counter argument. In the right submarket where you have real, meaningful rent growth and sponsors and general contractors like KBS who have a proven ability to deliver, projects can be capitalized and delivered.”
The Verve and Metropolis are part of a movement in recent years to “urbanize” Innsbrook by adding more apartments to the suburban office park.
Other future pieces of that effort will include the North End at Innsbrook, a mixed-use development that’s planned to include nearly 1,000 apartments and condos, a hotel and retail space at the Nuckols Road and Interstate 295 interchange.
JBLCo, which is fashioned as an investment banking firm for real estate projects, has made a habit in recent years of taking an equity ownership stake in projects it helps finance, including in the Richmond region.
Locally, it has arranged capital and invested in 11 apartment projects totaling more than 3,000 units and $770 million in investment in the past few years. Its other recent deals included the newest phase of apartments at Regency mall and the redevelopment of the former Sampson Coatings property in Manchester.
Last fall, JBLCo made a successful exit from its investment in Windsor Business Park V, a 60,000-square-foot industrial flex property at 8555 Magellan Parkway in Henrico, alongside seller and frequent collaborator Fernau LeBlanc. That property sold for $10.2 million.
Most recently, it helped close a $20 million financing package for the acquisition of Owings Mills Commerce Center, a two-building, 130,000-square-foot flex office-industrial portfolio in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Levy said the developers the firm is working with locally have another 1,000 units worth of apartment projects in the pipeline.