At the Lindbergh MARTA station, for example, the new BellSouth office complex is bringing in $1 million a year in rent revenue and is expected to grow to $7 million by 2010 as the development increases the number of projects on its 99-year land lease, according to a published report.

MARTA will sell land for condominium ventures but generally prefers to receive the cash stream it can receive from long-term land leases on transit-oriented developments, area industrial real estate brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

The 30-year-old transit authority has been land-banking sites it acquired for nominal costs years ago. Brokers say MARTA is one of the nation's savviest developers of excess land or outparcels, largely due to its position of insisting on long-term leases rather than accepting a one-time lease payment for the dirt.

MARTA is also benefiting on the tax side. As a public agency, MARTA doesn't pay taxes. But if it did, brokers say, it could probably trim its tax load by depreciating the value of major investments, such as rail cars and buses.

However, other businesses that can use those depreciation rights, are doing lease-financing deals with MARTA that allow the firms to lease MARTA assets and use the depreciation rights that go along with the assets, brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Financial institutions and insurance companies are generally among the players dealing with MARTA on this transaction category, according to the report.

MARTA has allocated about $900 million of its $4 billion in assets into the lease-depreciation deals, the report states. Another $600 million in assets may be added in the coming years. The transit authority has invested about $51 million from these deals over the last two years.