San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Company offering flexible terms for furnished units moves into S.A.
ASan Francisco-based company offering flexible rental terms for furnished apartments recently launched in San Antonio.
Customers of Landing, founded in 2019, pay a $199 annual membership fee, along with rent, for access to a network of more than 4,000 apartments in more than 30 cities.
They can stay for as few as 30 days or indefinitely. Rates vary depending on the length, though there’s currently a 90-day minimum for units in San Antonio. Renters can also switch to another Landing property.
The pitch? No long-term leases, security deposits or boxes of furniture to unpack, said Chief Operating Officer Marcus Higgins.
“The pandemic’s really been a catalyst for our business,” he said. “People have been able to live where they want, not necessarily where they work.”
The company leases the apartments from property-management companies and currently has 125 in San Antonio. Monthly rents range from the lower $1,000s to the mid-$4,000s, depending on the size and location of the apartments.
“From a pricing perspective, for the flexibility that Landing offers, the removal of that deposit and then all the furnishings,
there is a fee that we add on top of what otherwise (is) a direct lease the property would charge,” Higgins said. “That fee varies, based upon the length that someone’s going to stay.”
Every apartment comes with a bed and linens, internet, furniture, kitchen appliances, a smart TV and other items, according to the company. The units range from studios to three-bedrooms depending on the area, and Landing also provides a concierge service.
San Antonio is an attractive market because of its growth and its population of renters, Higgins
said. The company expanded to Austin, Dallas and Houston before San Antonio, and has a distribution center in Austin that makes it easy to service San Antonio, he added.
The company declined to say how many members it has.
Founder Bill Smith came up with the idea for Landing after his own irksome moving and apartment-searching experience in 2016.
Smith, who sold delivery app Shipt to Target for $550 million in 2017, launched Landing in 2019. He put in $15 million of his own money and has raised $30
million in new funding, according to Bloomberg.
The company announced in July it had more than doubled the number of U.S. markets where it operates and also made several new hires. That included Higgins, who came to Landing after leading U.S. operations for Oyo Hotels & Homes, a hotel startup.
Amazon buys land here
Amazon Data Services Inc. has amassed more than 80 acres in the San Antonio area, probably for data centers it plans to build here, records show.
It purchased about 49.6 acres near I-37, Old Corpus Christi
Road and Donop Road from an entity affiliated with local developer Bitterblue. The company also bought roughly 37.5 acres near Potranco Road and Texas 211 from Lavender Hill Properties LLLP last month, county deed and state records indicate.
It’s unclear how many data centers the company intends to build in the area. Amazon didn’t respond to an inquiry.
Four separate filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation describe a project dubbed “AWS Rockfish” and a 109,600-square-foot data center.
Amazon Data Services Inc. is listed as the owner in three of the filings and Corporate Office Properties Trust as the owner on the fourth. The Columbia, Md.-based real estate investment trust is “the largest landlord of Amazon Web Services data centers,” according to a report by Bisnow, a business news outlet.
But the filings list different addresses. The locations include Texas 211 and Potranco Road, 11625 Old Corpus Christi Highway and 7400 Potranco Road, which is near the National Security Agency’s San Antonio installation.
The estimated costs also vary: Two of the filings list $55.95 million, and combining the figures on the two other filings comes out to that amount.
Amazon operates several facilities in San Antonio, including a sorting center on Callaghan Road on theWest Side and a fulfillment center on Foster Road on the East Side.