Argus paid Olympia Properties LLC through Boston-based TA Associates Realty $197 per sf for the two-building, 526,617-sf complex. TA Associates also sold Argus the three-building, 392,885-sf Powers Landing East campus in December 2005 for $66.6 million or $169.51 per sf, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. TA represented seller Realty Associates Fund V of Boston in the that deal.

Argus chairman and CEO Dick Gee tells GlobeSt.com "an advantage we had in being selected as the buyer was that we all worked together when we acquired Powers Ferry Landing last December. We had the same pension fund advisor representing the seller, the same broker, the same mortgage banker, same lender and the same property and leasing managers."

Will Yowell, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis Inc.'s Institutional Investment Properties Group in Atlanta, headed his team of vice president Jay O'Meara and first vice president Justin Parsonnet in negotiating for the seller. Bill Tyler at Atlanta's LJ Melody office brokered the acquisition financing through John Higgins at Chicago-based La Salle Bank. Jones Lang LaSalle are the property and leasing managers.

Gee adds, "We knew the [metro Atlanta] market well, since Paul [Gaines] has lived and worked here for over 20 years. The perfect Buckhead location really helped sell us on the properties."

Gaines, Southeast acquisitions senior vice president for Argus, tells GlobeSt.com the purchase was the largest in the company's four-year history. In doing the Securities Centre deal, Gaines says "location, location and location still holds true in every real estate transaction but in Atlanta especially, there is another important element--relationship, relationship, relationship."

"There was very strong institutional interest in Securities Centre, but we had confidence in Argus," CBRE's Yowell tells GlobeSt.com. "They jumped in right out of the gate, conducted a very thorough due diligence on the property, continually kept us well informed on their progress and did everything they said they were going to do."

Gaines tells GlobeSt.com the deal closed in 90 days. Securities Centre was on the market for only three weeks. "We continue to look for comparable properties" throughout the Southeast, Gaines says.

The 14.3-acre Securities Centre complex is comprised of One Securities Centre, a 15-story, 278,720-sf, class A, 98%-occupied building at 3490 Piedmont Rd.; and Two Securities Centre, a seven-story, 247,897-sf, 95%-leased, class B property at 3500 Piedmont Rd. "The entire complex has a class A location with direct access to Piedmont Road and minutes from the Buckhead Loop and GA 400," Gaines says.

He tells GlobeSt.com the $197-per-sf price is "well below an estimated replacement cost of $240 per sf. Similar office properties are selling in Buckhead at $260 per sf, with construction costs on new class A office buildings approaching $300 per sf."

Anchor tenants at Securities Centre include Fidelity Southern Corp., Atlanta's largest community bank; Katz Media, part of Clear Channel Communications; InfiCorp. Holdings, Safe Guard Products and Quikrete.

Current market rents for class A office space in Buckhead average $30 per sf but Gaines tells GlobeSt.com that class A space in Securities Centre is "able to compete very favorably in today's Buckhead office market, and that's an edge."