Piedmont Place Gets New Owners in $13M Deal

ATLANTA-Piedmont Place, a 100%-leased, 90,636-sf, class A office building near the Buckhead Loop and Piedmont Road, is under new ownership today for the third time in 22 years. Boston-based General Investment & Development bought the 3.2-acre property from the Realty Associates Fund III for $12.95 million or $142.87 per sf. Both firms are based in Boston.

GID bought the 10-tenant, four-story Piedmont Place at 3520 Piedmont Rd. NE for an affiliate, Windsor Realty Fund IV-2002 LP. Nigel T. Keenan, GID’s director of office investments, negotiated for his firm. Will Yowell of CB Richard Ellis Inc. represented the seller.

“The [Piedmont Place] investment is a high-quality core asset located in a mature market,” Keenan says. “The attractive location and institutional quality of the improvements should provide a competitive advantage for the property as local and national economic conditions improve.”

Spaulding Slye LLC, the operating partner of Windsor Realty Fund IV or WRF-IV, immediately selected the Atlanta office of Houston-based PM Realty to lease and manage the property. Trammell Crow previously had the assignment.

Keenan tells GlobeSt.com PM Realty was picked because the brokerage “has helped us to review a lot of other assets in Atlanta and I had formed an informal relationship with them.” Piedmont Place is the second acquisition for the WRF-IV fund. The first acquisition was Westborough Office Park in Westborough, MA in March 2003. “We are very selective with our fund, given the capital markets,” Keenan says.

GID’s investment strategy is to “acquire properties built since 1980 with quality tenant rosters in institutional locations,” Keenan adds. Target markets are the Mid-Atlantic region, Philadelphia, northern New Jersey, southern Connecticut, White Plains, Greater Boston, suburban Chicago, Atlanta and south Florida. Piedmont Place tenants include Cooper Carry, European American, Edwards Day, BB&T and Alexander Haas. The average asking gross rent is $21 per sf.

The Piedmont Place transaction took 16 days to complete, from contract signing to closing. The property was on the market since January. Buyer and seller ran into no environmental or governmental challenges before closing the deal, Keenan tells GlobeSt.com. He believes “the seller was selling the property from a fund with an infinite life.” The Realty Associates Fund III is managed by Boston pension fund advisor TA Associates Realty.

Huntington, AL-based Triad Properties sold Piedmont Place to Realty Associates Fund III on Oct. 3, 1996 for $10.45 million or $115.29 per sf, according to Triad’s website. Triad purchased the property on Dec. 14, 1994 for $8.5 million or $93.78 per sf.