Background

Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)

Wells Hill has been serving as a real estate financial advisor to the Office of Real Estate Development at Princeton University, which, as part of its Housing Master Plan, has been in various stages of development of graduate student, faculty and staff housing at a number of sites both on and off campus. Wells Hill has assisted Real Estate Development in devising a strategy and structure to attract third-party developers to build housing for Princeton. One such project is the development of a master-planned community in two phases on an approximately 25-acre site that provided 326 units of housing for Princeton faculty and staff. After Wells Hill analyzed the feasible alternative approaches, Real Estate Development elected to pursue a ground lease transaction at the site with the largest student housing REIT, American Campus Communities (ACC), which committed to build, own and operate the project. Having identified and framed the key business terms that Real Estate Development deemed critical, Wells Hill drafted a request for proposals (RFP), marketed the opportunity and, ultimately, structured and negotiated the ground lease and ancillary documents with ACC.

“Photos courtesy of Princeton University Facilities. Copyright 2014-2016 by the Trustees of Princeton University.”