Camden Selling Apartments Named Among Atlanta's Most 'Dangerous' For $115M

Camden Property Trust is under contract to sell an apartment property in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn neighborhood that has been plagued by violence.

Camden has agreed to sell Camden Vantage, the 592-unit apartment complex at 180 Jackson St. in the Martin Luther King Historic District, for $115M, Executive Vice President Alex Jessett said during a Feb. 2 earnings call.

Camden officials didn't identify the pending buyer on the call. Camden CEO Ric Campo didn't respond to a request for comment. 

After an analyst asked why the real estate investment trust, one of the country's 20 largest apartment owners, was willing to part with the property at a time when cap rates were on the rise, Camden President Keith Oden said its managers have been asking to be rid of it. 

“We keep a list of and have ongoing conversations with our operating groups about, if there were to be a sale out of one of your markets or submarkets, which assets would be in that conversation,” Oden said during the call. “And Vantage almost always came up as one that would be on the list of management’s list of assets that they would rather someone else take care of. So I’ll just leave it at that.”

Atlanta police reported 189 crimes at the Camden Vantage from 2017 to June 2023, including six robberies, two rapes and five aggravated assaults, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, including it in its investigation into the city's most "Dangerous Dwellings."The building has also made headlines for multiple killings that have occurred inside its walls.

In November 2021, two residents were stabbed to death at the property. The next summer, 7-year-old Ava Phillips was shot to death during an argument at a family gathering that led to the arrest of the girl’s mother and another person for the crime. A 25-year-old man survived multiple gunshots at the building in December 2022.

Camden purchased the property in 2013 for more than $80M and has spent more than $20M on upgrades, according to its most recent annual report. The average rent was $1,700 per month, and the property had an average occupancy rate of 94.7%.

Metro Atlanta has been a headache for Camden outside of the Vantage property as well. Earlier this year, Campo identified Atlanta as a trouble spot for the business because of the high rate of renter fraud and skipped rents in the area.

Oden said during the earnings call that same-property revenue underperformed in 2023 for Atlanta, Los Angeles and Orange County “because of bad debt, skips and evictions, and fraud.”