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Real estate development company Bonaventure is exploring senior living acquisitions in 2023 as the cost of new development and sourcing capital for projects remains high.

The Arlington, Virginia-based real estate development company will look for assets that are “great buildings with great fundamentals, but they have a bad balance sheet,” according to CEO Dwight Dunton.

“I think there are great opportunities to re-deploy value and add capital,” Dunton told Senior Housing News. “Especially because we believe that the [development] pipeline will grind to a halt.”

Bonaventure over the years has focused on developing resort-style senior living communities primarily focused on middle-market rates. The company’s home territory is in the state of Virginia, where it has undertaken several senior living projects.

Today, the company is expanding in other states, including North Carolina, which is a new market for Bonaventure. The company at the beginning of the year announced four senior living projects totaling 560 units in Virginia and North Carolina.

All told, Bonaventure has more than 6,000 units in its multifamily and senior housing holdings representing $1.5 billion of assets under management. The company currently has five senior living communities under development and three others that are open and operating.

Senior living strategy

Going forward, Dunton said Bonaventure’s senior housing strategy will center on acquisitions and mirror what the company is already doing in the multifamily apartment sector.

Last year the company acquired six multifamily communities spanning nearly 1,400 units as part of its overall $1 billion spend in 2022.

Despite the differences between multifamily and senior living real estate development sectors, Dunton thinks the two feed off of one another.

 

Bonaventure’s senior living communities are similar to independent living, though Dunton said they lie closer to active adult than IL.

In some cases, Bonaventure is co-locating other types of senior living at its properties. For example, the company is developing a 120-unit assisted living community next to an age-restricted community with 664 units.

Chicago-based Senior Lifestyle currently manages all of the company’s senior living communities.

Bonaventure’s communities had been operated by Solvere – now AgeWell Solvere Living – but have been operated by Senior Lifestyle.

“We made the switch because Senior Lifestyle’s values more closely aligned with ours,” Dunton said. “And they have extensive independent living experience that better aligned with the communities we’re building.”

Bonaventure’s pipeline includes three age-restricted communities for adults 62 years of age or older, one independent living community one assisted living community.

“All five of our development communities will be opening in 2024,” Dunton said. “The first will be Alate Old Down … an independent living community in Alexandria, Virginia.”

While Bonaventure’s pipeline and portfolio are a mix of senior living asset classes, Dunton believes the various value propositions of those asset classes require a case-by-case approach.

”If one looks at the higher-acuity demand picture, it could be good in a particular market, but that market’s labor component could make it a bad investment,” he said. “So, I think it’s not a simple algebraic equation.”

As for future growth, Bonaventure is targeting markets where older adults are looking to live, either because they want to be closer to their hometown or to where their family currently lives. In particular, he looks for markets where he believes the company’s different product types can share certain kinds of demand — something Dunton called a “holy grail.”

“We’d like to identify an area … where we can tap both of those feeder stocks for future residents,” he said.

Dunton believes Bonaventure is currently sitting at the intersection between two big trends: weak supply in high-demand markets; and a growing and dire need for middle-market senior housing from a cohort sometimes called the “forgotten middle.”

Bonaventure is in fact a middle-market development company at heart, according to Dunton. He added a challenge for the company is balancing affordability with the need to make up for high costs elsewhere.

Operating in the middle market in 2023 is tricky given where expenses for operators are. For example, middle-market rates in North Carolina may not constitute middle-market rates in Virginia. And given where expenses are today, Dunton believes that will remain a challenge.

“With today’s heightened inflationary environment, it’s a moving target,” he said.

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We are pleased to announce that Bonaventure was just ranked as the #5 Management Company NATIONWIDE in the epIQ Index for companies with 25+ communities by SatisFacts.
 
Resident satisfaction is our ultimate goal here at Bonaventure and this award is a true reflection of that. Thank you to our amazing residents for taking a moment out of your day to complete a survey. We are so grateful for residency, and we’ll continue to strive and elevate our resident’s living experience!  

And there’s even more good news to share – below is the list of communities that earned SatisFacts Research and/or ApartmentRatings awards for 2022! A total of 23 Bonaventure Communities received the SatisFacts Community Award and 8 Bonaventure Communities received ApartmentRatings epIQ Top Rated Award!
 
Congratulations to our team for going above and beyond in providing exceptional customer service, this is a true testament of all your hard work! Kudos to you all! See below for award details.
 
ApartmentRatings epIQ Top Rated Award
A+ epIQ Index with at least 5 reviews in 2022
 
1) Attain Downtown
2) East Beach Marina
3) Infinity at Centerville Crossing
4) Messenger Place
5) Promenade Pointe
6) The Carlton at Greenbrier
7) The Cascades
8) CovePointe at the Landing
 
SatisFacts Community Award
4.25+ overall score for Annual or Insite with a minimum of 25 completed surveys.
 
1) Arbor Grove
2) Attain at Harbour View
3) Attain at Quarterpath
4) Attain at Towne Place
5) Attain Downtown
6) Aura at Arbordale
7) Cedar Broad
8) Commons on Potomac Square
9) CovePointe
10) East Beach Marina
11) Infinity at Centerville Crossing
12) Magnolia Chase Apartments
13) Magnolia Run
14) Meridian Parkside
15) Messenger Place
16) Palmers Creek
17) Pinnacle Apartments
18) Promenade Pointe
19) The Amber at Greenbrier
20) The Carlton at Greenbrier
21) The Cascades
22) Vida East
23) Windsong

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ALEXANDRIA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bonaventure, an integrated asset manager focused on the development, construction, and property management of innovative lifestyle multifamily communities in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions, today announced that its investment activities exceeded $1 billion in 2022, demonstrating sustained growth and the company’s proven ability to successfully navigate changing market conditions.

Over the past year, Bonaventure acquired six multifamily communities across its target markets, comprising 1,399 units for $358 million. Five assets are located in Virginia (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Richmond, Hampton and Newport News) and one is located in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

As it relates to development activities, Bonaventure delivered phase one of Palmer’s Creek, a 200-unit luxury attainable multifamily community located in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Attain at Harbour View, a 300-unit luxury market rate multifamily community located in Suffolk, Virginia. The company also continued to build out its development pipeline with the addition of seven properties under construction. These projects include:

• Four senior living communities totaling 560 units in Virginia (Chesapeake, Spotsylvania, and Alexandria) and Cary, North Carolina, which represents a new market for Bonaventure.

• Three multifamily communities comprising 821 units located in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Virginia, as well as Huntsville, Alabama, which is also a new market for Bonaventure.

Bonaventure also took over management of a multifamily community in Richmond, Virginia and sold one luxury multifamily property in Williamsburg, Virginia for $100 million, delivering an attractive return on invested capital.

Commenting on the year’s business activity, Bonaventure founder and CEO, Dwight Dunton, said: “2022 was a highly productive and very successful year for Bonaventure on a number of fronts. We significantly increased our acquisition activity year-over-year and executed our development pipeline, demonstrating our ability to consistently source transactions and investment opportunities that meet our strict investment criteria. Moreover, we entered new markets, added great talent across the enterprise and formed mutually beneficial partnerships with organizations that enable us to reach new investors, expand our professional network and help cultivate the next generation of industry talent. Our team has acted with diligence and patience at every turn of the market and stayed the course of our strategies, delivering remarkable results in the process.”

Bonaventure continued to add exceptional talent to its team in 2022 with the hiring of Barry H. Bass as Chief Financial Officer, a key role to advance the company’s strategic growth priorities. Furthermore, Bonaventure formed strategic partnerships with third parties to support its business and ESG goals. Its partnership with iCapital provides a customized end-to-end technology solution that enables financial advisors and their accredited clients to access Bonaventure’s alternative investment offerings. A partnership with Family Office Networks (FON) expanded the firm’s investor universe, providing Bonaventure access to more than 500,000+ subscriber participants, including more than 10,000 family offices. The company’s partnership with Project Destined provides training in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and real estate to students from underserved communities.

Given Bonaventure’s vertically-integrated platform, deep knowledge of its target markets, extensive capital relationships, and experience investing through multiple economic cycles, the company is uniquely positioned to grow and deliver enduring value to its stakeholders.

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Dwight Dunton, Founder& CEO of Bonaventure recently sat down with  on the ‘Marketing Home, Marketing You’ podcast. In the interview, Dwight discusses many things including the Bonaventure story and the lessons he has learned overtime in his role as a leader.

To hear the full interview, click here!

 

In a rare occurrence for one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods, a developer is pumping the brakes on a new apartment project in Scott’s Addition.

Northern Virginia-based Bonaventure has listed for sale the 1.7-acres at 1700 Belleville St. where it had been planning its Scott’s Edge II project.

In addition to the land, the offering includes approved building plans and permits for a 203-apartment mixed-use building. Bonaventure has been planning the project since 2020 but never began work. It bought the land in a series of deals totaling $4.45 million.

Bonaventure CEO Dwight Dunton III said the decision to list the project for sale didn’t necessarily have to do with the broader economic landscape or the potential for a recession this year.

“(The recession and rising interest rates) are happening to everyone,” Dunton said. “It’s just we’re rebalancing our investment portfolio of projects that we have under construction versus other things.

“As we think about our entire investment portfolio, we’re shifting a little bit more of our resources toward acquiring existing assets rather than building from scratch,” he said.

Scott’s Edge II was to be a de facto second phase to Scott’s Edge, a 94-unit building that was one of Scott’s Addition’s earliest historic rehab tax-credit, adaptive reuse projects. Bonaventure bought the original Scott’s Edge in late 2019 for $17.6 million.

Dutton said Bonaventure has about 10 buildings under construction throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and it owns around 30 more properties that are already completed.

Northmarq’s Wink Ewing, Mike Lowry and Matt Straughan have the listing, which does not include an asking price. The city most recently assessed the land at $2.9 million.

The highest price tag for land on record in Scott’s Addition on a per-acre basis is currently $4 million, which Capital Square set last year with its $10.8 million deal for N. Chasen & Son’s 2.7 acres along West Marshall and Clay streets, where it’s planning to build 350 apartments.

The highest per-acre price tag the city’s ever seen came last fall when Brooklyn-based Avery Hall Investments paid $5.9 million per acre for the riverfront land in Manchester on which it’s planning to build a pair of apartment towers reaching 16 and 17 stories.

Avery Hall picked up that land from a local development group that, similarly to Bonaventure, had included approved plans and permits in the offering, though Avery Hall wound up not using those plans and designed its own project.

While Bonaventure’s Belleville site hits the market, another project just a block to the south is underway. Thalhimer Realty Partners and John Freeland’s 6-story, 126-unit apartment building at 1508 Belleville St. is now going vertical.

About half of the Bonaventure site was previously home to Ironwood Automotive before its owners sold to the developer and relocated their auto shop a few blocks north to the Westwood area.

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ALEXANDRIA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bonaventure, an integrated alternative asset manager focused on the development, construction, and property management of innovative lifestyle multifamily communities in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions, today announced a partnership with Family Office Networks (“FON”) to bring its real estate offerings and services to FON’s more than 500,000+ subscriber participants, including 10,000+ global family offices.

ON is the leading family office network enabling access and efficiency for families to network, invest and co-invest with each other. Through this partnership, Bonaventure will leverage FON’s full suite of media, marketing, events, technology and service capabilities to provide families and their wealth advisors with streamlined access to Bonaventure’s different real estate offerings as well as its development, property management, design and construction services.

“We are excited to partner with FON to provide their subscriber participants and family offices with access to our alternative investment offerings, which are designed to generate steady income and capital appreciation,” said Dwight Dunton, founder and CEO of Bonaventure. “Moreover, through our different offerings, we are uniquely capable of providing investors with the flexibility and tax efficiencies they often desire. As we look ahead to 2023, we anticipate a market that will present a number of investment opportunities that align with our strict investment criteria. We look forward to bringing these opportunities to FON.”

Bonaventure’s vertically-integrated design, development, construction, investment and property management platform is designed to ease the operational burdens of multifamily real estate development and investment. FON chose to partner with Bonaventure based on its impressive track record and ability to improve a family’s user experience through direct investment and/or collaboration.

“Given Bonaventure’s legacy as a successful and responsible real estate investor and operator, we are excited to partner with Dwight and the rest of the Bonaventure team to offer our growing family office community access to high quality rental housing investment opportunities,” said Victor Park, President of FON.

Hank Loughran, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets at Bonaventure, added, “Partnering with FON advances our ongoing effort to expand and diversify Bonaventure’s investor network. Our focus is on introducing investment offerings that have the potential to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns and providing exceptional service and optionality to investors. This optionality can come in the form of co-investments or commingled opportunities, helping to ensure we have the right solution based on a family’s specific needs or preference.”

Bonaventure is currently expanding throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions. Bonaventure’s long-term buy and hold philosophy drives the delivery of exceptional affordable, luxury and senior living communities.

Family offices seeking investment opportunities with Bonaventure should contact Andrew Schneider at Andrew@FamilyOfficeNetworks.com.

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