Shores, a 544-unit waterfront apartment community in Marina del Rey, California, has sold for $170 million to affiliates of Jackson Square Properties, according to a Business Wire announcement from law firm Cox, Castle & Nicholson, which represented seller Shores LLC. The deal, which closed June 30, works out to roughly $313,000 per unit and ranks among the largest commercial real estate transactions in Los Angeles County this year.
The property spans 12 interconnected five-story buildings arranged around a 2.5-acre landscaped courtyard, with units primarily configured as one- and two-bedroom residences. Amenities include a pool, dual spas, fire pits, barbecue areas, a bocce court and sky terraces with ocean and marina views. The community was completed in 2013.
Decades in the making
Ira Waldman, a partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson, has represented the property’s ownership for nearly 40 years, dating to the late 1980s. “This transaction marks the culmination of decades of planning, redevelopment, financing, and stewardship” of the waterfront community, Waldman said in the announcement.
That history reflects a broader transformation: Shores was originally a 1960s-era garden apartment complex before being redeveloped into the current property, repositioning what had been an aging asset into a premier coastal multifamily community aimed at professionals working in the Silicon Beach technology corridor that runs through Marina del Rey, Venice and Playa Vista.
What it means
The sale is a data point for institutional investors watching Southern California’s coastal multifamily market, where high land costs and constrained new supply have long supported premium pricing for well-located, amenity-rich properties, even as parts of the broader Los Angeles apartment market have faced softer rent growth. A per-unit price above $300,000 for a stabilized 2013-vintage asset signals continued investor appetite for coastal, transit- and job-adjacent multifamily product despite a choppier capital-markets environment for commercial real estate generally.
The transaction adds to a string of large West Coast multifamily trades RealtyWire has tracked this year, including Weidner’s $112 million sale of a 387-unit Lynnwood, Washington, community, and comes as Essex Property Trust has raised guidance on strengthening San Francisco rents, another signal that West Coast apartment fundamentals are stabilizing in select coastal submarkets even as builders elsewhere report weaker demand.
