Marietta Tech Center Secures $44M in Refinancing Funding
The deal was reported by Bethesda, MD-based commercial real estate finance firm Walker & Dunlop, which represented California-based Praelium Commercial Real Estate and South Street Partners of Charlotte, NC, in refinancing the property as part of a restructuring and recapitalization of the ownership entity.
MARIETTA, GA—The ownership of the Marietta Technology Center has secured $44.3 million in refinancing funding for the 347,000-square-foot Class B property here.
The deal was reported by Bethesda, MD-based commercial real estate finance firm Walker & Dunlop, which represented California-based Praelium Commercial Real Estate and South Street Partners of Charlotte, NC, in refinancing the property as part of a restructuring and recapitalization of the ownership entity. Walker & Dunlop’s Mark Strauss and Rob Quarton led the firm’s team in the funding transaction.
The transaction with an unnamed investment bank was structured as a seven-year, fixed rate loan with interest only payments at maximum leverage for the entirety of the term. The original financing was completed on an accelerated timeline during a volatile period in the capital markets at the end of 2018, Walker & Dunlop reports.
“Marietta Technology Center garnered a very positive response from lenders. We positioned the opportunity to highlight the key strength of a long-term lease with an investment grade tenant.,” Strauss says.
Walker & Dunlop’s Quarton adds, “This property represented a secure loan with an experienced sponsor in a burgeoning market with predictable cash flow on a long-term basis.”
The recently financed assets in the Marietta Technology Center consist of four single-story, highly renovated office buildings originally constructed between 1983 and 1985.
The properties benefit from a number of large corporate headquarters operations are within five miles of the asset, including Genuine Parks, Printpack, HD Supply and Race Trac Petroleum. They are located just three quarters of a mile from I-75, Atlanta’s primary northwest/southeast artery. The Marietta submarket also benefits from its close proximity to the city. With an employer base of Fortune-500 corporations, world-class centers of education and healthcare, and technology startups, the region is poised to continue its trajectory of robust economic growth and to stimulate its neighboring localities, Walker & Dunlop notes.
Back in August 2017, Walker & Dunlop closed an approximate $59-million combination of bridge and equity financing for Praelium Commercial Real Estate and South Street Partners in acquiring Newmarket Business Park, a 471,486 square foot, Class B, multi-tenant office property in Marietta.
The debt was placed by a debt fund and arranged as a floating rate bridge loan with full-term interest only payments. A hedge fund invested the equity.
In a separate deal outside of its partnership with Praelium Commercial Real Estate, South Street Partners acquired The Cliffs, a group of seven luxury residential developments on approximately 20,000 acres in the Blue Ridge region of North and South Carolina for an undisclosed amount, according to a report in the Charlotte Business Journal.
Earlier this month in a deal structured by Walker & Dunlop, Toronto-based Brass Enterprises secured $65.2 million in financing in connection with its recent purchase of The Hermitage Apartment Homes in Downtown St. Petersburg, FL.