Multifamily Fever at Stadium

Armed with peanuts and Cracker Jacks, we got taken out to a Gwinnett Braves' ballgame for a glimpse of Brand Properties' coming mixed-use project surrounding the Gwinnett stadium.

Brand's Brand Morgan (on left with Jim Duggan) just broke ground on the third stadium-area apartment project, this one directly overlooking the ballpark. (Just build nets over the windows and list 'free baseballs' as an amenity.) The 206-unit project will deliver by November, Brand says. And this project will quickly be followed by Homerun Alley, a 50k SF mixed-use building bordering center outfield that will include 25k SF of restaurants and retail and 25k SF of office and a 130-room hotel.

Already, Brand has developed and operates two other apartment complexes nearby—The Highlands and The Overlook. Together, Brand has amassed 1,000 units near the stadium, each commanding some $1.10/SF in rents. “Because we have over 1,000 units here, we feel this will spur retail,” Brand tells us. (It's a boom market on foam fingers!)

We also ran into Granite Properties' John Robbins along with his wife Jae and sons Thomas and Boone (none too thrilled with the crackle of fireworks just before the game). Jae's firm Resource Branding & Design has been tapped to design Brand's new apartment project.

Dwell Design Studio's Jason Shepard also made it out to the Gwinnett Braves' game, hanging out with us at Brand's stadium suite. (We did it for journalism.) Jason says business has really picked up in the past year as developers get busy again, post Great Recession. Most recently, Jason says Dwell is helping Northwood Ravin design a 250-unit apartment and 48-unit townhouse project that will be part of a Fuqua Development mixed-use project at North Decatur Road and Scott Boulevard. That project just broke ground last week.