ATL Office Sales Top $2.7B So Far This Year

To say Atlanta's office investment market is hot could be an understatement. A more than $2B understatement.

Cushman & Wakefield notes that, so far this year, $2.7B in office properties have traded hands, a level not seen in Atlanta since the cusp of the Great Recession in 2007, when $3.3B in properties sold (eclipsed only by Atlanta's 2006 high-water mark when a nearly record $4B traded in the metro area). Notable sales so far this year include:

• 7000 Central Park, which sold for $85.3M to CBRE Global Investors;
• Two Buckhead Plaza, which was bought by Parkway Properties for $80M;
• Highwood Properties purchase of Monarch Centre for $303M;
• Starwood Capital's buy of Tower Place 100 for $170M;
• Dilweg's purchase of both Royal Centre in Alpharetta for $85.2M and Centennial Tower in Downtown Atlanta to the tune of $68.8M;
• Building & Land Technology's banner buy of Concourse Corporate Center (here) for $489M, the highest net price ever paid for an office asset in Atlanta's history;
• 201 17th St, the Atlantic Station tower that KBS REIT II picked up for nearly $100M; and
  
• CBRE Global Investors' huge buy of AT&T's Midtown Plaza for $260M.

With two months left in the year, there are other key sales that could take place. Or at the very least, keep the sales momentum carrying over into 2016. Most recently, CBRE's Will Yowell and his team have been tapped by CBRE Global (quite busy lately) to sell Atlanta Plaza, the 632k SF Buckhead tower that recently scored an 80k SF lease with RentPath. And Real Estate Alert reports that TPA Group has tapped Eastdil Secured to market Northyards, the 277k SF West Midtown creative office complex in a sale that could fetch $60M.

And then there's the much-watched pending sale of Bank of America Plaza, the sixth-tallest building in North America that's also the poster child for the malaise of the Great Recession when BentleyForbes lost it to creditors in 2012 and it was sold on the Atlanta courthouse steps for $235M. CBRE was tapped to list it earlier this year, along with CW Capital's other asset, Piedmont 14. Trepp notes that since the summer “marketing efforts have increased, showings/tours have picked up, and there are several outstanding proposals.” Piedmont 14 (here), which has seen its occupancy rise to 77% from a low of 40% since CW's takeover, is expected to sell by year's end as well, Trepp notes.