Citizens Bank funds $128.7m Boston-area multifamily construction loan via Colliers

Citizens Bank has funded a $128.7 million construction loan for FoxRock Properties’ planned redevelopment of Quincy Medical Center into an apartment community in a transaction arranged via Colliers.

The planned Ashlar Park will be a Class A apartment complex in Quincy, close to Boston and its Cambridge submarket, and the hope is that it will attract tenants looking for a calmer, less urban apartment experience, according to Jeffrey Black, partner and co-head of the Boston office at Colliers.

“It effectively offers a suburban vibe, having open green space and a suburban lifestyle, but with all the benefits of being immediately proximate to downtown Quincy, with red line access to both Boston and Cambridge,” Black told Real Estate Capital USA.

Colliers, which also arranged the sale of the property several years ago, saw a competitive bidding process from a wide group of regional and national lenders that ranged from debt funds to commercial banks. Ultimately, Citizens Bank offered the best terms. “Citizens Bank did everything they said they would do,” Black added.

Despite replacing a large existing structure, much of the planned Ashlar Park will be new construction. The property’s roughly 19,500-square-foot brick administrative building is being conserved as a flagship part of the project. “The rest of the residential units are all new construction,” Black added.

Family office surge

The project highlights another trend – local investor FoxRock is one of a growing list of family offices looking to real estate to increase returns.

“There’s certainly been a notable pivot in the past several years, with family offices either establishing standalone [real estate investment trusts] or creating their own vertically integrated platforms to gain access to real estate,” Black said.

FoxRock’s homegrown commitment to the area made Ashlar Park a logical site of expansion. The firm has amassed north of 4 million square feet of medical office and healthcare space and office space in the South Shore, in and around Quincy. 

“[The sponsor is] one of the fastest-growing privately held firms in the metro Boston real estate arena,” Black said. “The next step of the evolution of the firm has been stepping into these kinds of transformational developments or redevelopment of assets that they currently own and taking them to higher and better uses.”