Construction to Commence Immediately On Student Housing Project for Cornish College of the Arts

Public Private Partnership Student housing project for Cornish College of the Arts reaches financial closing and achieves major milestone for new on campus finance transaction structure.

BIRMINGHAM, AL – Capstone Development Partners (www.capdevpartners.com) (“Capstone”) together with Harrison Street Real Estate Capital (“HSRE”) has achieved financial close on a new student housing project for Cornish College of the Arts (“Cornish”) in downtown Seattle, WA. Capstone together with HSRE, Cornish and their design and construction partners will commence construction immediately on the project which has been in design for the past year. The project will have a total development cost of approximately $49.6 million. Construction is to begin this week with an expected completion date in Fall 2015. The project hs been designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects and will be built by Howard S. Wright Construction.

The development, located at the corner of Terry and Lenora Avenues and immediately across from Cornish’s main academic and administration building, is composed of approximately 432 student beds. The housing will be the primary on campus residence for the students, replacing two Cornish residence halls currently in use on 7th and 8th Avenues. Cornish will master lease108 beds to neighboring City University for a period of 10 years initially and will reserve the balance of the beds for Cornish students. The new facility will consist of one 20-story building totaling approximately 159,000 square feet inclusive of the residential units, academic and administration space.

Structured as a unique public-private partnership, HSRE and Capstone are providing all of the funds necessary for the project through a combination of long term equity and debt. The Capstone HSRE joint venture entity has entered into a ground lease with Cornish. The management of the project will be a creative collaboration between CDP/HSRE, Cornish and Capstone On-Campus Management (COCM) in a shared governance approach.

“We are delighted to be working with Cornish on this exciting new student housing project, hopefully the first of many utilizing the Capstone – Harrison Street finance program, P3+” said Bruce McKee, Capstone Principal and Cornish Project Executive.

Capstone is currently in negotiations for a second project under the P3+ transaction structure to be developed for the University of North Alabama.