Grosvenor Americas, a privately owned international developer and investor, announced the close of $300m in its latest round of investment capital through its Structured Development Finance (SDF) division for True North III (TNIII), a limited partnership between Grosvenor, Nicola Wealth and Kingswood Capital. This third partnership continues to provide equity financing for residential and mixed-use developments in the North American gateway markets where Grosvenor develops and invests: Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver (Canada).

Combined with True North I & II, the Structured Development Finance Programme has raised nearly $1bn in commitments since 2015. To support the acceleration of this strategy, Grosvenor added both Steve Guberer, formerly with CBRE, as Senior Vice President, Capital Markets to lead capital raising activities in the U.S. and Canada, and Jennifer Eskildsen as Vice President, Co-Investment to oversee SDF’s west coast activities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Orange County.

Grosvenor’s program seeks best-in-class developers in its chosen markets to deliver much needed housing. Projects range in scale from 50 to 450 units.

“Nicola Wealth has been involved with Grosvenor’s structured development finance business since 2015,” said Mark Hannah, Managing Director of Nicola Wealth's Real Estate division. “This is the third iteration of True North and we remain, as ever, attracted to the expertise Grosvenor offers as a vertically integrated property company leveraging that experience to capitalise third party developers.”

Although the consortium of partners are Canadian investors, the program will invest mainly in U.S. markets owing primarily to supply/demand differences brought about by the pandemic:

“We recognize the structural shortage in supply of good quality urban infill housing in gateway cities in the U.S.,” said Alex Henderson, Senior Vice President of Co-Investment for Grosvenor Americas. “The housing demand and supply imbalance could become even more acute if developer pipelines do not remain full and this new phase of TNIII supports our ability to get new and needed product to supply-constrained regions efficiently.”

The first committed TNIII project to close is with Roadside Development for $15m to build a 10-story condominium project at Eighth and O Streets NW in Washington, D.C.’s Shaw submarket with 79 for-sale units, of which 24 are below market.  Several other pipeline deals will close Q3 2021.

Grosvenor’s SDF business has acted as a capital provider to 72 residential development projects representing over 5,600 residential units and $4bn in gross development value since 2000.

Intersect at O by Roadside Development, Washington, D.C.