Ben Carter's Next Fortune
For Atlanta developer Ben Carter, Fortune has been fickle. Today, she's smiling upon him and his (former) 1.2M SF upscale Florida mall.
Ben Carter Enterprises just sold his half of Jacksonville's St. John's Town Center, a massive open-air mall off J. Turner Butler Boulevard and I-295 for $375M to Deutsche Bank USA. That puts the sale of his share at a 4.1% cap rate—one of the lowest caps paid for a mall in the US, at a time when malls (especially legacy indoor malls) have lost favor for investors. (But there will always be things you can only do in malls... such as mall walking.) Simon Properties, which owns the other share, will keep its stake and will continue to lease and manage the property.
This marks a huge turn of fortune for Ben, whose original “Streets of Buckhead” project clobbered him in the Great Recession. His ambitious project is only now being completed under the ownership of CBRE Global Investors and Oliver McMillan. And it appears he's on to bigger things again—including redevelopment plans for Broughton Street in Downtown Savannah. As for St. John's, the mall (partially seen here)—built in 2005—most recently secured Nordstrom. Eastdil Secured's Eric Zimmermann brokered the sale.
