The site is in Braselton, GA, off Interstate 85 and 25 miles northeast of Downtown Atlanta. Rooker is shooting for a fall 2002 completion. Haverty is leasing the quarters from Rooker for 15 years. Haverty and Rooker officials couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn leasing details or construction costs.

But area construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the center will probably be built at no less than $65 per sf or a total $32 million. If it is expanded later to 932,000 sf at the same per-sf construction cost, the aggregate cost would be $60 million.

"That's a very conservative figure," the estimator tells GlobeSt.com. "It could be much higher, depending on the electronics and telecommunications equipment that might be installed along with the construction."

On the leasing side, area brokers familiar with the Interstate 85 industrial submarket estimate Haverty will be paying rent of about $10 per sf or $5.1 million for the first year and about $77 million for the total 15-year life of the lease.

"That rent total may appear to be on the high side but you have to factor into the rent picture that this is going to be a state-of-the-art distribution facility with electronic whistles and bells," another area industrial broker tells GlobeSt.com.

The new center will replace two aging structures in Atlanta and Charlotte, each estimated at 200,000 sf. Haverty owns those two centers and will be selling them when the new facility is operating, according to a company-prepared statement. The two older assets can no longer be expanded or upgraded, the company states.

In the new facility, "we will be able to shorten our just-in-time inventory window to our customers and have better systems for handling the growing mix of imported product in our merchandise assortment," Clarence H. Smith, Haverty's chief operations officer, says in the same statement.

Braselton was selected for its "ideal location and a wonderful employment base," Smith says, but didn't indicate the number of new jobs that would be created at the new location.

Braselton (estimated Pop. 3,192) grabbed the national news spotlight for a day in 1989 when actress Kim Basinger and an investment group bought the entire town of Braselton for $20 million.

Four years later, the 47-year-old Basinger filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors and sold her interest in Braselton for $1 million, according to published accounts at that time. Basinger was born in Athens, GA, 25 miles northwest of Downtown Atlanta.

Haverty operates 105 showrooms in 68 cities located in 14 Southern and Central states. The company posted $680 million in sales in 2000.