Business Park Buy Spurs Office-Warehouse Condos

The JV bought Lavista Business Park at 2000-2068 Weems Rd. as part of a three-project sale portfolio by Raleigh, NC-based Highwoods Properties Inc. Hailey/Johnson Investments bought the other two portfolio components. "I was not privy to the total purchase price," Jeff Nickol of Nickol Commercial tells GlobeSt.com. Nickol also declined to disclose the Lavista purchase price. Lavista is just inside the Perimeter submarket at Interstate 285 and Lavista Road in the Decatur/Tucker area of metro Atlanta.

The office-warehouse condo space will be sold for $70 per sf in 6,000-sf to 18,000-sf increments at the four-building, 217,000-sf campus. Nickol says "the demand for this product seems to still be strong, with long-term interest rates down and the upward trend on rental rates and values via the lack of land and higher construction costs." He adds, "This seems to be a good time for users to acquire their own buildings."

James Brearley, another JV partner, says the La Vista project "will continue to offer the small user community an opportunity to purchase their own facility inside the Perimeter [submarket] at about what it would cost them to lease the facility."

Weaver Woodbery/Nickol Commercial also owns Peachtree Square, a 23-year-old, 305,000-sf office-warehouse property at 2693-2711 Peachtree Square which the JV renovated in 2004 and 2005 and is now sold out. The Peachtree Square condos sold for $65 per sf. "Service-related industries that need close-in locations" are buying the condos, Nickol tells GlobeSt.com.