Highwoods Properties, a Sun Belt-focused real estate investment trust that has been fine-tuning its office portfolio, acquired the ground leases for 14 properties at a suburban Atlanta office park that was donated to two Georgia colleges about 25 years ago.
Highwoods paid $50.6 million for the ground leases for 13 office buildings and a parking garage it already owned at Century Center in northeast Atlanta, according to Brendan Maiorana, a spokesman for the REIT. The seller was Mercer University and two additional entities, according to initial property records filed with DeKalb County, Georgia, where Century Center is located.
“This transaction essentially consolidates our ownership of the buildings and the land, which provides us more long-term flexibility and certainty,” Maiorana said in an emailed statement.
Maiorana declined to say if Highwoods is considering redeveloping some or all of Century Center. The company has been selling off what CEO Ted Klinck has previously described as "non-core assets" in order to "use the proceeds to recycle into higher quality buildings and reduce leverage." The REIT sold about $85 million worth of properties over the first nine months of 2024, according to information filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
At the 83-acre Century Center office park, Highwoods has held most of its buildings pursuant to a long-term ground lease with an unidentified third-party title holder, Maiorana told CoStar News. He declined to provide additional information about other parties involved in the sale. However, property records show that Goddard Investment Group and Gig Acquisitions are the additional parties involved in the sale.
Goddard did not respond to requests for comment. Gig Acquisitions could not be reached for comment.
The family of Remer Crum and Emily Fisher Crum donated the Century Center office park to their alma maters, Mercer University and LaGrange College, in 2000. At the time of the gift, the property was valued at $123 million, according to Mercer. LaGrange College previously sold its ownership interest in the ground leases, according to a spokesperson.
A Mercer spokeswoman declined to comment on the sale of the ground leases. Mercer is a private institution with about 9,000 students that operates its main campus in Macon, Georgia, and has additional campuses in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia.
The properties include single-story buildings constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, an 18-story tower at 1800 Century Blvd., which opened in 1975, and a five-story building at 2595 Century Parkway, which opened in 2005.
Tenants include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at 1825 Century Blvd., Northrop Grumman and Sherwin-Williams at 2800 Century Parkway, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 1875 Century Blvd.
In a separate transaction, True North Management Group acquired the ground lease for the Atlanta Marriott Northeast/Emory Area within the Century Center office park for $7.2 million, according to property records. Mercer, Goddard and Gig Acquisitions are listed as the sellers for the ground lease for the hotel at 2000 Century Blvd.