TruAmerica feted its expansion into ground-up multifamily development Friday with the groundbreaking on River Walk Townhomes in Santa Clarita, California. The project is part of the Los Angeles-based firm’s broader diversification efforts, according to Stuart Cramer, head of residential development at TruAmerica Multifamily.
TruAmerica launched about 12 years ago as a workforce housing owner, and since then, “we've expanded [into] both higher-end and to more affordable” apartments, Cramer told Multifamily Dive. “At the same time, we've diversified into ground-up construction, and we also have a preferred equity program, so we just had a desire to be a more diversified company.”
With the 154-unit River Walk project, TruAmerica’s footprint in Southern California has expanded to about 21,000 units across 85 owned and managed properties, per a press release shared with Multifamily Dive. The move represents “a significant milestone in the firm’s continued growth as a comprehensive, vertically integrated multifamily investment platform.”
The development will consist of two-story, three-bedroom townhomes as well as 10 affordable apartments and about 8,500 square feet of commercial space, per the release.
The site is located adjacent to the Santa Clara River Trail and less than a mile and a half from the newly built Vista Canyon metro and bus station, which connects residents to Burbank, California, and downtown LA, according to Cramer. “Being in Southern California, close to our headquarters location, and having the metro dynamics, it’s like, ‘oh man, this site,’” Cramer said.
Santa Clarita, which is roughly equidistant between downtown Los Angeles and Palmdale, California, “has a huge amount of employment and employment growth,” according to Cramer. It’s “a market where we can provide low-density townhome units, a rental product that fits both family situations and roommate situations, and where we can provide it at a lower cost than we can in some other areas.”
TruAmerica bought the roughly 10-acre site in August and recently closed construction financing with First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., per the release. First designed as a high-density project, “we were able to buy the land at a price where we could redesign it to a lower-density apartment, which we think hits the market in this suburban location very well,” Cramer said.
The project design emphasizes indoor-outdoor living and will feature a clubhouse with a fitness center and a resident lounge, a pool and spa, a tot lot, a dog park and outdoor BBQ patios, per the release. The first townhomes and community spaces are expected to come online in spring 2028, with full completion by fall 2028.
TruAmerica’s building strategy
For now, TruAmerica is focusing its development efforts on townhome-density to midrise-density projects in Southern California, according to Cramer.
“California is our home territory, and when expanding from apartment ownership and into apartment development, we've started with Southern California and organized our TruAmerica residential development division working out of the home office in Century City,” Cramer said.
In addition to market-rate and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects, “we're also focusing increasingly on what we call mixed-income projects that have both an affordable component and a market-rate component,” Cramer said.
Building in California does come with challenges. Keeping up to date on the changing political environment as it affects development requires constant attention, “not in a negative way, but in a positive way,” Cramer said.
“There's just so many things over the last five years, and so many more things over the next five years, to help be able to bring more housing, whether it's market-rate or affordable, to the market in California,” Cramer said. “So the challenge is to stay abreast of it and be able to take advantage of it.”
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