CUMMING, GA-Roberts Realty Investors Inc. has paid a premium $218,181 per acre, or $5 per sf, in a $4.8-million purchase of 22 acres in this suburban city, about 30 miles northeast of Downtown Atlanta. The Atlanta-based developer plans a 154-unit apartment community at the site near the intersection of GA 9 and Old Atlanta Road.
Michael A. Quinlan, vice president and controller, didn't return a GlobeSt.com phone call to learn the land seller's name. But in a prepared statement, Charles S. Roberts, the company's founder and CEO, says the acquisition is part of a Section 1031 tax-deferred exchange. The company is using a portion of the proceeds from the May 2005 sale of the firm's Ballantyne Place community in Charlotte, NC.
In June, the company purchased 14.5 acres of investment property zoned for 217 residential units in the Westside mixed-use development in suburban Alpharetta. Roberts also didn't disclose the seller's identity in that transaction.
Roberts says the company will break ground on the 154-unit project in first quarter 2006 with leasing to begin in the summer. "This community will be similar in size to Rosewood Plantation and Ivey Brook, two other 150-unit communities that the company developed previously," he says in his statement.
Roberts Realty currently has 1,022 residential units in various phases of development in metro Atlanta. Besides the Cumming project, the company has under development 220 units on Northridge Parkway, 236 units and 120 units on Peachtree Dunwoody Road and 292 units on Peachtree Parkway.
"The company is experiencing negative operating cash flow as a result of its decision to sell its older, appreciated communities and to exit the Charlotte, NC market," Roberts says. The company "expects the negative operating cash flow to continue through the end of 2006 or until its new communities are constructed and leased," he adds. "As a result, the company does not intend to pay distributions to shareholders in the foreseeable future."
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