Homebuilder partnering with Boston PE firm, not original partner Silverback, on luxury rental
777 Summer Street in Stamford and Toll Brothers Apartment Living president Charlies Elliott (Silverback Development, Toll Brothers)
Toll Brothers has chosen Stamford for its first big multifamily play in Connecticut.
The publicly traded homebuilder’s apartment division is developing a 355-unit luxury complex at 777 Summer Street in the city’s downtown.
The project, the first in the state for Toll Brothers Apartment Living, will be a joint venture with Boston-based private equity firm CrossHarbor Capital Partners, the companies said Tuesday.
Capital One and Comerica Bank provided the developers with a $94 million construction loan arranged in-house by Toll Brothers. The project is in an Opportunity Zone about a mile from the city’s Amtrak and Metro-North station.
The development will contain 333 market-rate apartments and 22 set aside as affordable. Amenities will include a roof deck, a fitness center, a pool, a game room, co-working space, an art studio, a coffee bar and a pet wash.
Toll Brothers had originally partnered with Josh Schuster’s Silverback Development to convert existing office buildings on the site to a 373-unit rental complex with 4,300 square feet of retail, the Westchester & Fairfield County Business Journals reported in 2020. Silverback acquired the buildings for $12.5 million in 2016 and received approval from the city to convert them to apartments, according to the Stamford Advocate.
It’s not clear why that project never came to fruition, but plans for the venture were revealed ahead of the pandemic and before problems at several Silverback projects came to light. Toll Brothers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stamford’s affluence, rising rents and proximity to New York City have made it an attractive destination for developers during the pandemic. In February, office landlord Monday
Properties dropped $131 million on a 344-unit apartment building in the city’s downtown.
A month later, a joint venture led by New Jersey-based KABR Group acquired two multifamily communities in Stamford for $41.3 million. One of them is at 750 Summer Street, just down the block from Toll Brothers’ project.
The homebuilding giant is increasing its holdings in the sizzling rental market, including a partnership announced last year with Sam Zell’s Equity Residential to develop roughly $1.9 billion worth of apartments across the country. The investments will span several major markets, the firms said, including Boston, Seattle, Atlanta and Austin.