Cousins executives said Q3 results were buoyed by several major transactions completed during the quarter. In July, a partnership between Cousins and the Bank of America Corp. agreed to sell the 55-story Bank of America Plaza for a record-setting price of $436 million to an affiliate of Los Angeles-based BentleyForbes, as reported by GlobeSt.com. Cousins also contracted to buy Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Inc.'s 1.2-million-sf, 20% occupied 191 Peachtree Tower for $153 million. In August, Cousins announced that the American Cancer Society signed a 274,000-sf lease at Inforum, a 994,000-sf building downtown.

Other highlights from the quarter were the sale of Frost Bank Tower, a 531,000-sf office building in Austin, TX for $188 million, or $354 per sf, and the acquisition of 85 acres of land north of DFW International Airport in Flower Mound, TX, for development of Lakeside Ranch Business Park, a 1.7-million-sf industrial project. "We continued to execute our strategy of capturing value in stabilized assets and reinvesting it in other assets," Cousins executive vice president and CFO James Fleming said during the call.

The company estimates that $87.7 million, or 73% of undepreciated costs, were captured in the sale of the Bank of America Plaza and $44 million, or 31% of undepreciated costs, were captured in the sale of the Frost Bank Tower. "This year, we've captured $280 million in value," Fleming said.

As a result, management plans to recommend to the company's board of directors next week that the company pay out a special dividend of $3.30 to $3.50 per share payable by the end of the year, Fleming said.