ACG Equities Buys Vinings Main for $24M

 ATLANTA-Chicago- based ACG Equities Inc. purchased Vinings Main, a mixed-use commercial and residential condominium development in an Atlanta suburb for $24 million cash. The acquisition represents the first allocation from ACG Equities’ $150 million Midwest-based private equity fund. The fund is capitalized by an unnamed, $6 billion hedge fund. Officials at ACG say that the purchase is the first in a planned series of acquisitions.

The Vinings Main project is located just inside the Perimeter on Paces Ferry Rd. in Cobb County  northwest of Atlanta. The parts of the development that ACG bought are: 145 residential condominiums ( only three of 148 had been sold by the original developers, Atlanta-based Wood Partners and The Columns Group) and 17,000 square feet of retail condominium space plus a 461-space parking deck. Another 34,000 square feet of office condominiums had been sold before the ACG purchase.

The original developers, who finished the Vinings Main condominiums in 2008, spent an estimated  $57 million on the development. A 16-acre gated community, the Vinings Main was originally planned with 229 luxury residential units--148 residential condominiums in three mid-rise buildings and 81 three and four-story brick townhouses. The townhouses were not part of the ACG acquisition.

The Vinings Main development is close to the posh shops and restaurants of Vinings Jubilee, a town center for the unincorporated village of Vinings, which is a recreation of a Victorian-era town, built less than 25 years ago near the Chattahoochee River. The Vinings neighborhood is known for its expensive, high-density residential development and Class A office buildings as well as shops and restaurants.

A consortium of 23 lenders foreclosed on the Vinings Main in December of 2009. Last September, Wood Partners had asked permission of the Cobb County Commission to rent out 97 of the Vining Main condominiums and lease another 48 with options to buy, but was turned down.

In the month since the Vinings Main acquisition, ACG has closed on roughly 20 residential condominiums, priced from $140,000 to $290,000. The original asking price range for these units was in the high $200,000s to the high $500,000s, according to ACG.  The 81 townhouses were priced from the $600,000s to $1 million or more by the original developers, the new owners say. But in September 2009, a year or more into the recession, an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution quoted prices for the residential condominium units between $250,000 and $300,000.

The retail space at the Vinings Main is 82% leased, although ACG plans to sell that space, says Paul Muessig, president of ACG Equities.

Going forward, says David Lang, ACG Equities principal and managing director of the company's Atlanta office, "we would like to acquire not just for-sale residential property, but value-oriented, income-producing developments as well. Each of our principals has specific expertise in office, apartment and industrial as well as condominium product.”