Mar 23, 2022 | By Tim Schooley – Reporter, Pittsburgh Business Times
The Davis Cos. may have just finished a $15 million investment to reposition the former Shannon Hall from serving as student housing for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to a market rate apartment building. But that didn’t keep the Boston-based company from leasing up a large proportion of the downtown property’s 205 units amid Covid-19 or from finding a buyer of it now.
Company chairman and Squirrel Hill native Jonathan Davis wasn’t immediately available for comment.
But New York-based Aion Partners now counts what is now called Terminal 21 among its recent investments, including the downtown property on its website for an acquisition it reports closed on March 14.
A representative of Aion wasn’t immediately available, either.
But the company is no stranger to investing in multifamily property in the region.
Aion’s portfolio of properties in Pennsylvania include a number of apartment complexes in Western Pennsylvania, including the 111-unit River Oaks in Aspinwall, the 150-unit The Alden, in the South Hills and the 436-unit The View North Hills in Ross Township.
On its website, the company explains its investment strategy to invest in workforce housing, typically of multifamily property that appeals to renters who make between $35,000 and $62,000 a year, noting that 60% of the U.S. population earns less than $75,000 a year, calling it a “massive segment” of the market.
It remains to be determined what Aion paid to buy Terminal 21. There is as of yet no record of a sales price based on a deed transfer on the Allegheny County website.
The pandemic might have stalled Terminal 21’s lease up in the early going of Covid-19 but it didn’t stop it.
Davis, whose company is perhaps best known in town for restoring the Union Trust Building downtown, told the Pittsburgh Business Times in July of last year that Terminal 21 was about 85% occupied at the time and was drawing in 30 to 35 new residents a month at the time.
At a time when downtown’s office market has been trolling through the low ebb caused by the pandemic as companies continue to negotiate bringing employees back to the office, downtown continues to brim with apartment redevelopment plans.
Just this week, a new owner of the GNC Building at 300 6th Avenue briefed the Pittsburgh Planning Commission on its plans to convert what was originally built as a department store and has been used for more than 50 years for offices into 249 apartments.
Other apartment conversions are in the works for the Allegheny Building along Forbes and at 642 Fort Duquesne Boulevard, among others.