Indian Springs Park at 154 Quapaw Drive in Byrant is one of two mobile home parks publicly traded Flagship Communities REIT of Toronto purchased Nov. 30 from married co-owners Tom Quarles and Betty Richards of Little Rock.
The two each held 50% stakes in both properties, Quarles told Arkansas Business. The other property, Shady Oaks RV & Mobile Home Community at 186 Hwy. 167 North in Bald Knob, sold for $800,000.
Quarles said the couple purchased the Bald Knob park for about $326,000 in 2015 and the Bryant location for $6.6 million in 2016. He said they tacked on another 2 acres to the site in 2019 for about $250,000.
Quarles said multifamily properties have been “selling like crazy.”
The Bryant park may have been especially attractive after the city rezoned the property for multifamily use around 2017.
But Quarles also said Bryant is a fast-growing city with plenty of job opportunities — including the new Arkansas Heart Hospital Encore Medical Center, LKQ Corp. warehouse and the nearby Amazon warehouse — and a quality school district.
“They’re going to put a lot more money in the park and, you know, change it up a lot, probably modernize things,” Quarles said of the new owners, who took over on Dec. 1. “And I think they’ll be a good, good company to continue with improvements and everything else.”
According to Flagship, the 97-acre Bryant park is 98% occupied. It has 327 lots and 31 rental homes.
The 29-acre Bald Knob park is 56% occupied. It has 84 lots and eight rental homes.
Flagship calls itself the Midwest’s largest developer of residential manufactured housing communities. In Arkansas, it already owned one property, Lakeside Estates at 2613 E. Coffelt Road in Jacksonville.
But it’s been steadily acquiring others throughout its seven-state footprint: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
On Nov. 10, Flagship reported third-quarter net operating income of $7.6 million, about $1.7 million higher than forecast, and revenue of $11.4 million, about $2.3 million higher than expected.
Richards is no stranger to big sales. She is the former owner of truckload carrier and expedited services provider Rich Logistics of Little Rock, which sold to Roadrunner Transportation Systems Inc. of Cudahy, Wisconsin, in a $48 million deal in 2014. Quarles said he and Richards plan to retire to Hot Springs.