Cousins Paying 45-Cents Dividend on Series A Stock

Shareholders of record on Nov. 1 will receive the dividend Nov. 15. The quarterly dividend equates to a $1.94 dividend on an annualized basis. Cousins has figured in several high-profile transactions this year.

In August, the REIT and an affiliate of Maryland-based Stonebridge Associates closed a $145-million sale of the six-year-old, 98%-leased, 423,000-sf class A Pinnacle office building in the Buckhead district to New York-based TIAA-CREF. The per-sf-price of $342.78 is the highest per-sf-price ever recorded for a comparable metro area property, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

In September, Cousins and its joint venture partner Bank of America signed a Bank of America Plaza tenant to the largest class A office lease of its kind in the metro area in the past 10 years. Ending a year of speculation, the locally based, 600-lawyer Troutman Sanders firm contracted to occupy 307,000 sf at the nearly 1.3-million-sf Bank of America Plaza building for 13 years at an estimated aggregate rent of $111 million or about $28 per sf, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

And three weeks ago, Cousins announced plans for the construction of the first class A office tower in Buckhead since 2001. The REIT plans to build a 500,000-sf property at an estimated hard construction cost of $125 million on a 10-acre site at Peachtree and Piedmont roads. Almost half of the planned venture is preleased to four major tenants, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.