Crocker Partners Acquires Atlanta Office Tower

ATLANTA - May 8, 2013 - PRLog -- Crocker Partners (http://WWW.CROCKERPARTNERS.COM) announces it has acquired Atlantic Center Plaza, an iconic 23-story, 500,000-square-foot Class A office tower in the heart of Atlanta’s Midtown market. A joint venture between Crocker Partners and the Distressed Real Estate Opportunities Fund managed by Siguler Guff & Company, LP (http://www.sigulerguff.com/) recapitalized the building. Crocker Partners now owns and operates 1.7 million square feet in the Atlanta market and more than 6.0 million square feet throughout the southeast U.S. and Texas.  This asset represents the fifth acquisition in the past year by the Crocker / Siguler Guff venture, which constitutes nearly 2.9 million square feet of properties located in primary markets throughout the southeast U.S. with acquisition costs exceeding $500 million.

Atlantic Center Plaza, built in 2001 and with LEED Gold certification, is one of several assets Crocker Partners previously owned, sold in 2005, and recently re-acquired. Among the largest Class A office landlords in the Atlanta market, Crocker Partners owns the 18-story, 432,000-square-foot  Prominence office tower in the Buckhead submarket and an adjacent 6.4-acre land parcel proposed for 700 high-rise residential units. It also owns Cumberland Center II, three buildings in the Alpharetta submarket totaling 333,000 square feet, and a 3.7 acre parcel for future development in the Central Perimeter market.

“Atlantic Center Plaza has tremendous value-add potential,” said Partner Chris Eachus, who directs Crocker Partners’ Atlanta regional office. “We’re excited to reinvest in a trophy asset, in a premier submarket, at a time when metro Atlanta is experiencing significant absorption and job growth (http://www.bls.gov/ro4/cesatl.pdf).”  The Atlanta metro market added 57,800 jobs year over year February 2013, according to The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eachus said.

Eachus said Atlantic Center Plaza is well positioned to attract relocating and expanding companies, with one of the largest contiguous blocks of Class A space in the market, up to 180,000 square feet.  Additionally, it is located within a designated Opportunity Zone, which provides significant tax incentives to existing and new tenants at Atlantic Center Plaza for each job they create.

There were no brokers involved with this transaction.

Crocker Partners continues to seek acquisitions in the Atlanta market with a focus on value-add and opportunistic office investments, Eachus said. The company also has a major stake in Florida, where it is the largest landlord in the Miami CBD, and recently re-acquired two Florida office parks totaling 1.3 million square feet -- Freedom Commerce Center in Jacksonville, and Orlando University Center in Orlando.  In Houston, the company re‑acquired the Lakes on Post Oak, a 1.2 million-square-foot complex in the Galleria submarket.

Headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. with regional offices in Atlanta and Houston, Crocker Partners is a leading owner and developer of commercial properties in major Southeast and Southwest markets.  For nearly 30 years, the company has employed a highly disciplined approach to investing.

In all, Crocker Partners’ principals have owned, managed, or developed more than 31 million square feet of mixed-use, office, and residential projects valued at over $4.0 billion in major markets in the Southeast and Texas.  For more information, contact Angelo Bianco, 561-447-1810, email investor_relations@crockerpartners.com , and view the company’s portfolio presentation at www.crockerpartners.com .