Corus Provides $61M Construction Loan for Plaza Midtown

The developers, Daniel Corp. of Birmingham, AL and locally based Selig Enterprise Inc., plan to break ground before year end on the total 550,000-sf venture, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Corus declined to disclose the loan's interest rate or other funding terms but area brokers familiar with the project and the market tell GlobeSt.com the rate was under 6%. The loan was to a Daniel Corp. affiliate.

Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund LP of Beverly Hills, CA is the mezzanine lender. Magic Johnson, a former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, is managing director of the fund. Chris Barkidjija, Corus Bank assistant vice president, was the lead officer on the construction loan.

"Corus worked closely with the residential developer, mezzanine lender and a separate retail developer [Selig] to structure a first mortgage loan that allowed for the release of the retail parcel at its shell completion," says Barkidjija. The retail space is not included in the construction loan since Selig is building out that area itself. The development site is at 850 West Peachtree St.

"The vertical subdivision of the project required the bank to create a highly customized first mortgage loan structure to meet the needs of the borrower and its retail developer partner," Barkidjija says. "We were able to draw on our experience in condominium construction lending to get comfortable with the budget and sales aspect of the project while offering a non-recourse loan."

Daniel Corp. paid $9 million, or $2.7 million per acre, for the 3.3-acre site, according to locally based Databank which tracks area commercial real estate transactions. At $62.61 per sf, the dirt was one of the most expensive in recent local land deals, brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

The parcel is just north of the Novare-Wood site at West Peachtree and Alexander streets where locally based Novare Group and Wood Partners Inc. have broken ground on an estimated $100-million, 29-story, 406-unit condo-office-mixed-use community on another prime two-acre site at Center City in the affluent Buckhead district.