This Week's Atlanta Deal Sheet: Coro Embarking On 4 Self-Storage Projects
An Atlanta-based commercial real estate investor is moving forward with a handful of new self-storage developments in the metro area.
Coro Realty Advisors is breaking ground on Lake Lanier Storage, a 75K SF facility and a 49K SF boat storage building at 6401 McEver Road in Flowery Branch after having recently completed the second phase of Auburn Avenue Storage, a three-story, 57K SF facility in Columbus.
The developer is in the planning phases of Ridgewalk Storage, an 83K SF, two-story facility at 295 Ridgewalk Parkway in Woodstock, and Georgetown Storage, a four-story, 120K SF storage facility behind a Kroger at 4470 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road in Central Perimeter. Both of which are set to break ground this fall.
Coro President Robert Fransen said the firm targeted markets where entitlement for self-storage facilities is difficult to obtain in hopes of staving off competition, especially as the sector comes down from a development boom. Developers added 242M SF of self-storage space in the U.S. over the past four years, according to a Marcus & Millichap report.
The self-storage vacancy rate in Atlanta is expected to rise this year to 9.5%, up 130 basis points from the fourth quarter, with developers adding more than 1.5M SF of new storage space to the metro area’s 59M SF of supply, according to Marcus & Millichap. But rents are expected to stay above the 2019 watermark at $1.03/SF as new construction slows down and people continue to move to Sun Belt markets.
Fransen said the firm selected visible sites along high-traffic corridors and near an influx of build-to-rent communities. Renters of these homes often need self-storage to hold excess household items that don’t fit into purpose-built single-family rental homes, which often don’t have basements, he said.
Fransen said Coro will look to sell its portfolio of self-storage facilities to an institutional investor, a group that has been active buyers of these facilities over the past few years.
“I think there’s a very high risk of oversupply of self-storage,” Fransen said. “We’re taking kind of a longer-term view that the supply and demand equation will normalize in the long run.”
DEVELOPMENT
High Street Residential, a subsidiary of Trammell Crow Co., is expected to break ground later this year on the Residences at Perimeter Summit, a seven-story, 350-unit wood-framed apartment project at 5005 Perimeter Summit Blvd. overlooking Interstate 285 in Central Perimeter.
The firm purchased 5 acres within the Perimeter Summit complex, which includes 1.7M SF of office space and an 182-room hotel, for the project that will consist of a mix of studio to two-bedroom apartments. High Street expects to deliver the apartments in fall 2026.
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Homebuilder Scott Puckett LLC filed an application with regional planners to develop Ridgeview, a nearly 75-acre mixed-use development that will include a 110-room hotel, 16K SF of food and beverage space, 265 apartments, 212 townhouses and 74 single-family homes at 4435 and 4045 Ridge Road in Hall County.
The project is scheduled to deliver in April 2027, according to the application with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, which oversees projects that will have a regional impact on infrastructure.
LEASES
Hyperbaric Physicians of Georgia leased 9K SF at Union Park, a 178K SF, four-building medical office campus off Glenridge Drive in Central Perimeter. Landlord RX Health & Science Trust also signed Muna Fertility to a 6K SF lease.
Transwestern Real Estate Services' Steve Hall, John Lopez and Bo Stuart negotiated the leases on behalf of the owner.
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Embattled coworking giant WeWork has filed a motion in bankruptcy court to keep its lease at Terminus 100, the 27-story tower in Buckhead’s prime business district off Peachtree Road. The company didn't reveal how many square feet its restructured lease would be but said in court filings that it reduced the size of the premises, reduced the rent and converted the deal to a gross lease with revenue sharing. WeWork also plans to pay the landlord, Cousins Properties, more than $1.1M to cure the original lease, according to the filing.
WeWork originally leased 42K SF at Terminus 100 in 2018.
SALES
Microsoft purchased 136 acres near South Fulton Parkway for $52.5M for a new data center, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. A spokesperson for Microsoft told the AJC the purchase is in support of its South Atlanta data center development already underway.
PERSONNEL
Joe Fogarty has been named vice president of the healthcare real estate development division of Ryan Cos. Fogarty, working out of Ryan’s Atlanta office, will oversee healthcare development and operations in the firm’s Southeast region. A 20-year veteran in the medical real estate market, Fogarty has worked on more than 30 projects totaling more than 2.5M SF and $900M, including the $50M Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown Campus in Nashville and a $55M, 120K SF Raleigh UNC Health facility.
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Lauren McNally has been tapped by JLL as regional manager of the Atlanta office’s property management division, tasked to grow the firm’s business throughout the Southeast. Before JLL, McNally was the director of property management operations with The Brookdale Group.
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Sonny Molloy and Jared Kaye have joined the Atlanta office of Matthews Real Estate Investment Services as executive vice president and senior vice president, respectively. The duo, who broker the sale of retail properties in the Southeast, comes from Marcus & Millichap. Molloy and Kaye together have generated nearly $3B in sales volume in their careers.
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Veteran Atlanta retail broker John Kimbrough has joined Bull Realty’s retail leasing division as vice president. Prior to Bull, Kimbrough ran his own retail brokerage business. Kimbrough graduated from the University of Mississippi and holds an MBA from Spring Hill College.
