Major Tenant Exit Could Prompt Demolition At Suburban Atlanta Office Building
The wrecking ball could be coming for yet another struggling Central Perimeter office building.
OA Development is seeking permission from its lender to put 100 Ashford Center North up for sale to developers looking to convert the 162K SF mid-rise office building into apartments, according to a Morningstar Credit alert.
A source familiar with the property said OA Development has already found a buyer, which would tear down the five-story building and replace it with housing, if it can rezone the property.
OA Development partner Brian Granath declined to comment.
The pending sale comes after the building's largest tenant moved out at the end of June. Utility software provider Meridian Cooperative occupied nearly 67K SF, or more than 40% of the building's rentable area, and its exit left the building two-thirds empty.
The $14.8M CMBS loan tied to the building, which was developed in 1986, was transferred to special servicing in June due to “imminent monetary default,” according to Morningstar.
OA acquired the building for $22.3M in January 2017, according to DeKalb County property records, and financed the purchase with a $15.6M loan that is set to mature in February 2027. The building was 92% occupied at the time, but that dropped to 33% following Meridian Cooperative's departure.
“There’s really no path forward these days for an office building that’s 30-something percent occupied,” Morningstar Credit Senior Vice President David Putro said in an email.
That means the likeliest scenario is 100 Ashford Center becomes another suburban office building to be razed because the value of the land beneath it is likely greater than the structure itself.
Portman Holdings purchased the two-building Brookside office park in Alpharetta earlier this year with plans to tear down one of the circa 2000 office buildings for a project with 350 apartments, 90 townhomes, 60K SF of retail and surface parking.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton plans to raze a 29-year-old, four-story office building in Peachtree Corners to make way for a 75-unit townhome project, and Terwilliger Pappas last year purchased Embassy Row 100, a 115K SF mid-rise office building in Sandy Springs, to tear it down for an apartment community.
“I never thought I would see that, but that’s where we are in the cycle,” Granath previously told Bisnow about office demolitions. “There’s too much suburban office product.”
OA's building also isn't the only one in the Ashford Center office complex to stare down distress. TerraCap Management lost 200 Ashford Center North last year in a foreclosure auction, with the lender bidding $13M on a building TerraCap bought in 2019 for $24.6M.
