Preferred Apartment Communities Inc.'s board reaffirmed the company's strategy of acquiring grocery-anchored shopping center properties via its New Market Properties LLC unit.

Accordingly, the board approved a temporary suspension of the company's 20% investment threshold on owning and operating nonmultifamily properties.

The goal is to aggregate a critical mass of assets and eventually spin off, sell or distribute New Market once market conditions allow and sufficient scale has been achieved.

Preferred Apartment recently picked up seven grocery-anchored shopping centers from Hines Real Estate Investment Trust Inc. through New Market for roughly $158 million, excluding transaction costs.