The Cue readies for opening at 30 percent pre-leased
Downtown’s first high-end apartment community in five years is about to welcome its first tenants in the latest barometer of demand for urban living in a city more accustomed to the suburban lifestyle.
The Cue at the northeast corner of Q and 18th streets, its 49 units 30 percent pre-leased amid mildly unfortunate timing, is the second project by a local developer that continues to transform a part of town where it has already made a decidedly modern mark.
With one- and two-bedroom apartments priced at $2,100 and $2,500 per month, respectively, the property offers sleek amenities and a deliberate balance between tenant privacy and semi-public engagement with sidewalk life in the surrounding neighborhood of Eastchester.
“We really wanted to be effective with the space that we have,” said architect Daniel Cater of Cater Design Group, hired for the job by another Bakersfield company, developer Sage Equities.
Like Sage’s other rental projects nearby, The Cue is financed largely by local investors buying into the company’s vision of a 24-hour downtown largely populated by professionals — about half of them from out of town, as has been the developer’s rental experience so far — preferring downtown bustle over the comforts of a grassy front lawn and ample backyard.
The timing might have been better but for pandemic-related construction and utility connection delays that stretched the job to two years from the 16 to 18 months similar projects normally take. On top of that, market conditions have slid somewhat during the past year.
A recent report from ASU commercial said high-end rentals have been hit the hardest as citywide apartment vacancies last year rose to 2.54 percent in the fourth quarter from 1.38 in the second. Bakersfield’s average rent growth has slowed from 15 percent in 2021 to just less than 9 last year, the lowest in the last four years.
Sage principals Anna and Austin Smith shrugged off signs of cooling, saying Thursday the
projects are modest in size and, with little local competition for urban-style apartments, the project benefits from California’s and Kern’s overall shortage of housing.
“I don’t see vacancy getting to any significant level, because we’re under-built for multifamily housing,” said Austin, son of Ward 4 City Councilman Bob Smith, who is also a principal at Sage.
White walls reach 10 feet above the lobby’s gray vinyl flooring. Ground-floor one-bedrooms feature tilted casement windows and front-loading washers and dryers, quartz countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
Atop the fourth floor is a 180-degree patio view of downtown Bakersfield. Lofts there are already rented, as are all the building’s two-bedroom units, leaving only the 750-square-foot one-bedrooms.
On the ground floor, set apart from a dog park still in the works along with landscaping and other final touches, opens a patio featuring an outdoor fireplace and shared grill. The communal area includes a water fountain expected to be covered in time by a leafy trellis.
Other features on site include an Amazon parcel locker, an elevator and a four-story trash chute leading to what Sage has dubbed the “rubbish room.” The property will have eight electric vehicle charging stations and one parking space per unit.
Work proceeds on three other rental projects by Sage, which in 2017 opened a 144-unit rental community called 17th Place Townhomes at O and 18th streets.
Construction continues at the company’s 40-unit rental project, 918 at Eastchester, at the former Sinaloa Mexican Food Restaurant at 20th and P streets. Austin Smith said that project will open in the first quarter of next year.
Across O Street from the townhomes project is 34-unit Cléo, now half funded and set to break ground in the second half of this year, he said.
Fundraising has only just begun for 51-unit Eastbank, proposed to be built north of Truxtun Avenue at the former home of Congregation B’nai Jacob, he said. It is expected to break ground in 2024 and open in 2025.