A Summit-based real estate investment and development firm has partnered on its first Opportunity Zone acquisition, it announced recently.
Saxum Real Estate has acquired a two-acre site in Austin, Texas, along with Austin-based development firm PlaceMKR. The property at 1141 Shady Lane is located in the East Austin Opportunity Zone.
Saxum said its planned 64,000-square-foot office development will include 62,000 square feet of creative office space, plus 2,000 square feet of retail or restaurant space and 9,000 square feet of outdoor courtyard space. The venture would be part of the thinkEAST master planned development in East Austin.
About 20% of the project is preleased already, Saxum added.
“This acquisition provides our investors a tax-advantaged investment in one of the best-located Opportunity Zone sites within Austin and the United States,” Saxum Managing Principal Anthony Rinaldi said in a prepared statement. “Austin represents some of the strongest growth fundamentals in the country, and for East Austin to be included within the Opportunity Zone program provides an extraordinarily unique investment opportunity.”
The deal represents Saxum’s first investment in Texas — via its Saxum Opportunity Zone Investment Vehicle — as well as its first OZ investment. A second OZ project is scheduled to close in the Philadelphia area in July.
