Partnership To Build $60M SkyHouse Midtown

ATLANTA-Shovels are in the ground as the next wave of multifamily development kicks off in Atlanta. Novare Group and Batson-Cook Development Company are building SkyHouse Midtown, a 23-story, 320-unit high-rise apartment community in Midtown Atlanta.

SkyHouse marks the first partnership between Novare Group and Batson-Cook. Novare Group is a real estate development and investment firm based in Atlanta and has been responsible for several signature multifamily buildings in the United States over the last decade. The near-century-old Batson-Cook has partnered on several high profile projects throughout the Southeastern United States. Sister company Batson-Cook Construction will build the project.

Mike Hood, Batson-Cook COO, tells GlobeSt.com the two firms complement each other. As he sees it, the partnership creates a synergy and opportunity to replicate the SkyHouse product in other markets.   

“It is important to recognize that strategic partnerships have traditionally played a very important role especially within the early stages of development cycles,” Hood says. “As cycles play out, it is often easier for a company to staff up and secure projects individually, but in the near term, the industry as a whole will continue to see strategic partnerships.”

An investor account advised by the U.S. real estate business of UBS Global Asset Management is providing construction and permanent financing for the $60 million project. NGI Investments, LLC, led by Jim Borders and Batson-Cook, is providing equity. Robert LaChappelle, Jonathan Rice and Paul Berry of the Atlanta office of CBRE advised on financing.   

“Financing remains very challenging, which is why partnerships play such an important role,” Borders, president of Navare Group, tells GlobeSt.com. “The key is to find partners that can truly complement each other and allow for lenders to get comfortable with a project. That is what has occurred with Novare and Batson-Cook.”

As the developers see it, the new construction couldn’t come at a better time. SkyHouse represents critical jobs putting Americans back to work when they need it most. Batson-Cook estimates the creation of over 500 construction jobs, temporary and full time, for the development of this project.

The Novare team has been working on the project or more than a year. Construction will begin immediately and is expected to be completed in December 2012. SkyHouse will be one of the first high-rise apartment buildings built in Midtown in a decade.

“We are firm believers in the first mover advantage,” Mark Stewart, director of Investments for Batson-Cook, tells GlobeSt.com. “We believe that with a market devoid of any new product in the past few years, continued population growth, and combined with the beginnings of a recovery taking shape, that delivering a product 12 months from now will prove to be a very wise decision.”