Canyon Partners Real Estate, The Martin Group and Valiance Capital Form Joint Venture for Development of Class-A Student Housing in Berkeley, CA

Joint venture will introduce The Valiant, a Class-A student housing community near the UC Berkeley campus

BERKELEY, Calif., Sept. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Canyon Partners Real Estate LLC, The Martin Group, and Valiance Capital today announced the formation of a joint venture to develop a new Class-A student housing community ("The Valiant" or the "Project") near the University of California at Berkeley ("UC Berkeley") campus, with construction scheduled to begin immediately and completion anticipated prior to the start of the 2026-2027 academic year. The joint venture simultaneously closed on a senior construction loan from Kennedy Wilson.

The Valiant will be an eight-story, purpose-built student housing community with 83 apartment units, 262 beds, and 1,461 square feet of retail space, designed to be amongst the best in its class within the Berkeley market. The Project is optimally located on Durant Avenue between Telegraph Avenue and Bowditch Street, one block from the main entrance to UC Berkeley's campus. It will feature numerous curated amenities including a spacious common area study lobby, fitness center, a rooftop deck lounge with panoramic views, various gathering spaces, private study lounges, high-speed Wi-Fi, and secured bike stations.

"With its prime location, sustainable design, and experienced development team, we're pleased to announce this exciting project in partnership with Valiance Capital and look forward to partnering with Canyon and the team at Kennedy Wilson on another student housing project," said Stephen Siri at The Martin Group. "The Valiant will provide UC Berkeley students with much-needed housing in time for the 2026 school year, and it is well-positioned to contribute to the economic growth of local retail and dining businesses alike."

Located in the heart of the highly desirable Southside neighborhood of Berkeley, The Valiant is walking distance to a number of local restaurants, bars, and neighborhood amenities popular among the UC Berkeley student body. The Project is also located within a 15-minute walk to the Downtown Berkeley BART station, providing connectivity to other key nodes throughout the Bay Area.

"With 15 years of local market expertise as one of the largest owner operators in the Berkeley student submarket, we are excited to build The Valiant to be the ideal student housing option in a highly specialized and high-barriers-to-entry market," said Nhan Nguyen Le at Valiance Capital. "In partnering with a best-in-class institutional team between The Martin Group, Canyon, and Kennedy Wilson, we look forward to delivering a premier private student housing development to serve the UC Berkeley community."

Canyon has been an active provider of debt and equity in California and continues to invest in real estate projects in primary and secondary markets across the United States. Since its inception, Canyon has invested $2.9 billion in debt and equity to capitalize $6.9 billion of total projects across all asset types in the state of California.

About Canyon Partners Real Estate LLC
Founded in 1991, Canyon Partners Real Estate LLC ("Canyon") is the real estate direct investing arm of Canyon Partners, LLC, a global alternative asset manager with approximately $26.1 billion in assets under management. Over the last ten years, Canyon has invested approximately $5.3 billion of debt and equity capital across over 180 transactions capitalizing approximately $21.2 billion of real estate assets, focusing on debt, value add, and opportunistic strategies. With 30+ years of experience, Canyon has established a broad menu of investment capabilities spanning property types, US regions, and project stages (including development, transitional, and distressed/workouts). For more information visit: www.canyonpartners.com.

About The Martin Group
The Martin Group is a real estate investment firm developing ground-up and value-add residential and mixed-use properties focusing on infill housing located near durable demand drivers in supply-constrained markets. Headquartered in Oakland, CA, The Martin Group has acquired and developed over 24 million square feet and over 20,000 residential units since its founding. For more information visit: www.themartingroup.com.

About Valiance Capital
Valiance Capital is a Berkeley-based real estate investment firm specializing in value-add and ground up student-housing and multifamily properties. Valiance is a vertically integrated owner operator with over 1,000 beds under management in Berkeley. With a portfolio in excess of $300 million in Berkeley, aggregated across 26 acquisitions since 2010, Valiance is one of the most active market participants in the market. Valiance's in-house property management arm, The Berkeley Group, is amongst the leading specialized student housing management firms in the market, with a nearly perfect 100% year-over-year occupancy, over the past decade. For more information visit: www.valiancecap.com. 

About Kennedy Wilson   
Kennedy Wilson is a leading real estate investment company with over $27 billion of assets under management in high growth markets across the United States, the UK, and Ireland. Drawing on decades of experience, our relationship-oriented team excels at identifying opportunities and building value through market cycles, closing more than $50 billion in total transactions across the property spectrum since going public in 2009. Kennedy Wilson owns, operates, and builds real estate within our high-quality, core real estate portfolio and through our investment management platform, where we target opportunistic equity and debt investments alongside our partners. For further information, please visit www.kennedywilson.com.

Media Contacts:

Canyon Partners
Kris Cole
[email protected] 
(310) 614 9208

The Martin Group
Stephen Siri
[email protected]
415-429-6044

Valiance Capital
Pepe - Sirabhop
[email protected] 
510-517-8140

SOURCE Canyon Partners LLC