Triad Breaks Ground on First Phase of Spec $55M Industrial Complex

The building is Triad's first phase of a multi-phased planned development of 1.5 million sf over 130 acres the Alabama company owns at the park on University Parkway-GA 316 across from Gwinnett County Airport. Building 100 is going up on a 16-acre site at a hard construction cost of about $32 per sf or a total $7.2 million.

The project brings Triad's industrial development presence in Atlanta to 2.5 million sf and establishes the developer as a major industrial player in the Southeast.

Gwinnett Progress Center "provides a platform for Triad to continue the industrial development program that we started in 2000," Triad business development director Bob Godard says in a prepared statement.

The company owns McGinnis Park, Newpoint Commons, The Woodlands at Riverside and Gwinnett Progress Center, the second largest business park in metro Atlanta.

The remaining sites on the 130-acre tract, ranging from one acre to 23 acres, will be developed on either a speculative or build-to-suit basis, or be sold to corporate users. The company bought the 16 acres in November 2001 from an unidentified buyer at an undisclosed price.

"Gwinnett Progress Center's location, which allows easy access to I-85 and GA 316, is right in the middle of the Atlanta-to-Athens market, one of the hottest growth corridors in the United States," Judd Daniel, a Triad marketing executive, says in the same statement.

"With very few, if any, large sites remaining in Gwinnett County suitable for industrial developments, this opportunity allows us to deliver quality distribution product in Atlanta's best industrial corridor without going an additional 15 miles north to Braselton, GA," Daniel says.

Westervelt Realty Inc., a wholly owned real estate development subsidiary of Gulf States Paper Corp. of Alabama, is Triad's investment partner.

Gwinnett Progress Center was formerly owned by the Bishop Estate of Hawaii, the park's original developer/owner. The Internal Revenue Service, however, forced Bishop to sell the asset recently to pay off delinquent taxes. An Atlanta partnership bought all of the remaining 600 undeveloped acres in the park for an undisclosed sum.

Triad Properties acquired all of the remaining large industrial sites from the local investors for an undisclosed amount.