Fledgling Developer Envisions $1.2B Project In Downtown Atlanta

A penny stock company based in Midtown Atlanta with big dreams is in talks to buy a Downtown site where it hopes to build a $1.2B mixed-use development.

Webstar Technology Group, which trades for 8 cents a share on the OTCQB equity market, is in talks to acquire a “fully permitted and shovel ready” site in Downtown Atlanta, it announced in a press release last week. It is also raising funds for a $650M resort project it hopes to build in Northeast Georgia.

It hasn't disclosed the locations or closed on the purchases of either site, but it has been negotiating to acquire a 10-acre site along Whitehall Street between Castleberry Hill and Downtown Atlanta that used to house the headquarters of Gourmet Foods International, said SSG Realty Partners CEO David Branch, who is marketing the development site, branded as Artisan Yards.

Webstar is working with Jae Kim, founder of Urbantec Development Partners, who planned to build a 3.8M SF mixed-use project called Forge Atlanta on the site, Branch said. Kim, who is now a CBRE vice president, lost the fully permitted site in foreclosure in 2023 to his lender, GFI founder Russell McCall. McCall tapped Branch to market the site for sale last year.

“I worked with Jae on the original Artisan Yards sale,” Branch told Bisnow Tuesday. “Once we took it back to market, he contacted me and said he is representing Webstar and they had potential interest in the Artisan Yards site and were in the process of placing a significant bond issue.”

Kim didn't return calls seeking comment.

His plans for a technology and life sciences-focused mixed-use campus included six towers with 1.7M SF of life sciences and office, 1,500 residential units, retail, a data center, a boutique hotel, a conference center and a 100K SF film studio.

Webstar previously announced that it is planning a $650M resort in Commerce, nearly 100 miles northeast of the city, to be named Bear Village. It would include water parks, a family entertainment center, racing tracks, an aquarium, a 300-room luxury hotel, more than 800 fractional ownership and condominium hotel rooms, restaurants, retail and a conference center on 120 acres.

The company's corporate attorney, Donald Keer, told Bisnow in a phone call Tuesday that the Commerce project is farther along than its plans in Atlanta.

“The planning of the Bear Village concept started probably during Covid or just before Covid. Covid just kind of reinforced what we had planned, which is a family-style resort where people did not have to jump on airplanes or throw kids in cars and drive hundreds of miles,” Keer said. “It is not a Disney World, but a place that is a family resort.”

Webstar, which had no revenue through the first three quarters of 2024, is attempting to raise “off-book financing” with a bond to finance the development of Bear Village, Keer said. 

“It’s not Webstar doing the bond offering. There are significant banks involved. But it’s outside of the Webstar corporate structure,” Keer said. “We have banks out of New York and major brokers out of New York and Atlanta. They’re just going to help us with financing the projects.”

Keer said Webstar plans to be the developer and operator of the properties.  

Webstar is aiming to turn Bear Village into a chain of resorts, Keer said, and is eyeing two other locations outside of Georgia for future locations. The concept was derived from the many family getaways that dot the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. 

“There used to be up in the mountains, Pocono Mountains, there were all kinds of family resorts,” Keer said. “That was, to a certain extent, the inspiration to mimic down in the South.” 

Webstar was founded as a software company run by technology entrepreneur James Owens. He sold the controlling interest in the company in June for $500K to the management team of another Atlanta-based company, Thunder Energies Corp., according to a Webstar regulatory filing.

The leadership of Webstar consists of Chairman Eric Collins, CEO Ricardo Haynes, Operations Manager Lance Lehr, President Eric McLendon, Vice President Ismael Fernández and Keer. 

Owens told Bisnow Tuesday that he was approached by Keer last year after building Webstar as a publicly traded company. The management offered to buy the vehicle and use it to raise money for their real estate projects, hoping to eventually be listed on a major stock exchange.

He converted his shareholders in the software component of the business into a private company he owns called JOS Software as part of the deal. 

“They were using the vehicle to go to the Nasdaq to get the bonds they were raising to get rated,” Owens said. “They have everything they need. This vehicle is perfect for what they’re trying to accomplish. So if they obtain their funding and do everything they’re supposed to do, they can take this to the Nasdaq.”

After they purchased the controlling shares of Webstar, the new management team bought the intellectual property of the Bear Village resort from Thunder Energies for 201 million shares of its stock. They then filed a public offering of stock, hoping to raise $10M for the Bear Village resort, according to a press release.

Keer admitted that getting listed on the Nasdaq will be an uphill battle for Webstar. The company reported a net loss of $4.4M in the first nine months of last year, with an accumulated deficit of $47.6M and $154 in cash on hand,  according to its most recently quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

To get listed on the Nasdaq exchange — where major tech companies' stocks are typically traded — a company must achieve one of a handful of criteria, including having cash flow of at least $27.5M for three fiscal years, a market capitalization of at least $550M, stockholder equity of at least $55M or total assets of $80M, according to Investopedia.

“Our long-term vision is to continue to create shareholder value though our real estate development projects in hopes of one day creating an entity, well-positioned, to be able to offer its shares on the Nasdaq,” Haynes told Bisnow in a text message.

Last August, Webstar replaced its longtime auditor last year with Olayinka Oyebola & Co., based out of Nigeria. The following month, the firm was charged by the SEC with aiding and abetting a “massive securities fraud” by three U.S. companies.

Keer acknowledged the issue and said Webstar fired the firm after 60 days when it discovered the SEC’s news release.

“We have not announced a new auditor yet, but we expect to next week,” Keer said.

Webstar said it “entered into a partnership” with architecture firm Nelson Worldwide for the Bear Village project in Commerce in its press release last week, touting Nelson's involvement in high-profile local projects such as The Battery's entertainment complex and the St. Regis Hotel in Buckhead.

“Our team was not involved with the press release, and we’re unable to speak on our involvement with the project at this time,” a spokesperson for Nelson Worldwide told Bisnow.