A flexible apartment living startup has teamed up with a prominent developer to build mixed-used projects in high-growth U.S. cities.
Sentral, a company backed by wealth management firm Iconiq Capital and real estate investment firms, announced a partnership with developer OliverBuchananGroup to build apartments and mixed-used developments, initially targeting Denver; San Diego; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; and Nashville, Tennessee.
“As we expand our footprint, we are strategically aligning ourselves with partners like OliverBuchananGroup who share our vision to build and operate the next generation of residential living,” said Jon Slavet, Sentral’s CEO, in statement. “Through this collaboration, we will address modern consumer preferences for living and travel while introducing brand standards and flexibility into the multifamily sector for the first time."
Sentral apartments are a combination of short-term rental for travelers but also for digital nomads looking to move around cities for longer stays but who don’t want to be locked into leases. It has 13 properties scattered across Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle and Scottsdale, Arizona. Only Austin, Chicago, Denver, Miami and Scottsdale have the hotel option. Sentral struck a deal with Airbnb last month in which renters in Sentral-managed properties can live in a different Sentral property and put their unit on the short-term rental market.
Their first project together will be in Denver’s River North District with a development planned to begin next year. Sentral already has a property in Denver with Sentral Union Station, a property Iconiq bought in 2019 for $287.6 million.
OliverBuchanan is a successor to OliverMcMillan, which Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management’s residential arm bought in 2018. OliverMcMillan, founded in 1978 in San Diego, has a long list of major developments including in its hometown as well as Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood in the years after the Great Recession, Nashville’s Fifth + Broadway on the site of the city’s old convention center, and the River Oaks District in Houston.
The new firm includes Dene Oliver, OliverMcMillan’s co-founder, and Eric Buchanan, OliverMcMillan’s former chief development officer. Before joining OliverMcMillan last December, Buchanan had been chief development officer for Lifestyle Communities, an apartment developer based in Columbus, Ohio.
Iconiq was started in 2011 by former wealth managers at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was a client of co-founder Divesh Makan while he was at Goldman Sachs, years before Facebook went public in 2012. The firm pulled in others from Facebook such as Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who sits on Iconiq’s board, according to technology venture capital tracking site Crunchbase.
The firm had $88.5 billion in total assets under management and generally works with people who have a net worth of at least $25 million, according to its brochure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its list of investments include online home goods store Wayfair, ride-sharing company Uber and short-term rental company Airbnb.
Hotel company Highgate, based in Irving, Texas, and real estate investment firms Los Angeles-based Ascendant Capital Partners and Greenbelt, Maryland-based Bozzuto Group are among the investors in Sentral.
Iconiq has bought 10 apartment properties over the past several years, according to CoStar data. In addition to managing those properties, Sentral also deals with real estate investors and developers like Coral Gables, Florida-based Allen Morris Co. and Chicago-based Bond Cos.
In June, Sentral joined with New York-based Property Markets Group on a flexible living development in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood, which is also the city’s financial district. They dubbed it the “world’s largest flexible living” apartment property. The first phase will rise 46 stories and include 570 units, and a second phase is expected to comprise 31 stories and 233 units.
PMG built Society Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, under its Society Living brand that includes coliving apartments. But the brand doesn’t include flexible leasing. Sentral manages an Iconiq-owned property in Miami’s Wynwood district near where PMG has another Society Living apartment property.