lj 10/5 cates Mid-America acquires three Southeast properties By LAURIE JOHNSON The Daily News Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc. has agreed to acquire three apartment communities in the Southeast with a total of 1,142 units for $45.1 million. The acquisition, which includes apartment communities in Jacksonville, Fla.; Austin, Texas; and Little Rock will help the company expand its presence and enhance its operating efficiencies in these mid-sized markets, said Eric Bolton, president of the Memphis-based real estate investment trust. "Because we already own properties in these markets, these new purchases will fit in quite well," Bolton said. "We will be able to share staff for certain types of functions, such as maintenance and housekeeping, among a greater number of properties, which will allow us to leverage off our personnel costs a bit," he said. "This will also help us from a marketing perspective, in that we will have a greater presence in these cities, and we will be able to do more with our advertising, as well." The 450-unit Woodhollow apartment community in Jacksonville will be the companys sixth in the area. Its addition will increase the number of MAA-owned units in the market to 1,781. The addition of the 308 units of Westside Creek I and II in Little Rock will bring the number of apartments owned by MAA in this market to 1,014. This will be the companys fourth property to own in the area. The acquisition of Balcones Woods, a 384-unit apartment community in Austin, brings the number of properties owned by MAA in the market to three, with a total of 976 units. The purchases of Woodhollow, Westside Creek I and Balcones Woods are expected to be complete in March. The acquisition of Westside Creek II is expected to be complete in September. Financing will be provided by the companys line of credit and assumed debt of $24.7 million. This acquisition is MAAs second in 1997. In January, the company announced its purchase of the Howell Commons apartment community in Greenville, S.C., for $13 million. Although he declined to release any specific information, Bolton said the company was looking at several properties for future acquisition. "We plan to continue to grow, and were finding a lot of properties out there for sale that are good prospects for repositioning," he said. "In the markets we are in, we are still able to find quite a bit of product that is priced well below the cost of what it would take to build it brand-new." Although MAA has invested in apartment communities in several Midwest markets, the company will focus primarily on acquiring property in mid-sized markets in the Southeast during the upcoming year. "We like cities like Little Rock, Chattanooga and Jackson, Mississippi," Bolton said. "The competition is not quite as fierce, and the overbuilding pressures are not as great as they are in the larger cities like Atlanta." In 1996, MAA invested $66.4 million in six new communities totaling 1,760 units and sold three communities totaling 724 units for $23.8 million. Also during the year, the company invested $3.3 million in new construction and spent $10.6 million in upgrades to newly acquired and existing properties. The company currently owns a total of 74 properties, representing 19,628 apartment units.