Carter Pursuing $500M in Developments, Investments

ATLANTA—Now that Carter has slimmed down its operation by selling off its brokerage and property management groups, the company is honing in on new opportunities. The firm is pursuing $500 million worth of developments and investments.

Carter will focus on developing mixed-use and for-rent multifamily projects in urban infill locations, equity development of student housing, acquisition of opportunistic and value-add investments in office. The firm will also work to grow its established project management and strategic consulting businesses.

“The sale of our brokerage services and property management businesses marks a milestone for Carter,” chairman and CEO Bob Peterson said in a statement. “This transaction was a major step for us in executing our strategy to narrow Carter’s focus on building high-quality projects, investing in real estate and providing strategic solutions to our clients.”

We Also Recommend:

• Developer to Move Ahead on $2B in Mixed-Use Projects
• Northwestern Mutual Forms JV for $200M Project in Bethesda
• Mack-Cali, Ironstate To Develop Jersey City Rental Multifamily

Carter’s development business expects new opportunities to emerge as corporate and educational development begins to rebound. Carter currently is overseeing the Banks, a $600 million development on the Ohio River in Downtown Cincinnati.

“We are pursuing mixed use, multi-family developments with market driven commercial uses in locations where supply and demand fundamentals are strong,” Carter president Scott Taylor tells GlobeSt.com. “Our focus for opportunistic acquisitions is in the office, high technology, health care and residential—mainly broken condo deals—areas.”

In the K-12 education realm, Carter is currently overseeing a $107 million public school building program in Enid, OK. And Carter’s Higher Education and Campus Innovation team is currently leading a $100 million program at the University of Louisiana Lafayette that comprises 2,000 beds and 900 structured parking spaces.

“Frankly there are not as many ‘developers’ around as there were four years ago,” Taylor says. “Initiating development projects is risky, expensive and takes time. The real estate investment community is quite sophisticated, well capitalized and looking for good deals. You just better hope your project stands a little taller in their eyes than the rest.”