ATCAP Purchases Northeast Atlanta Industrial Park

ATCAP Partners has acquired a 12-building light industrial park totaling approximately 753,700 square feet in Atlanta for an undisclosed amount. Dogwood Industrial Properties, a TPG Real Estate investment platform specializing in industrial assets, was the seller.

Developed in phases between 1973 and 1986, Gwinnett Park is currently 94 percent leased to 36 tenants with an average lease term of 2.6 years. The property, which is adjacent to I-85 in the Northeast Atlanta submarket, offers dock-height rear loading configurations, clear heights of 18 to 22 feet and approximately one-third of the space configured as an office.

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Dallas-based ATCAP has been an active investor across the country in recent years. In 2023, ATCAP acquired the Houston 610 Loop portfolio, totaling nearly 1.2 million square feet of industrial space, from Illinois-based CenterPoint Properties.

In 2022, the company formed a joint venture with Brookfield to acquire a 3.5 million square foot national logistics portfolio consisting of 51 properties.

JLL, which negotiated the transaction, representing the seller and recruiting the buyer. JLL also secured five-year fixed rate acquisition financing through Empower Investments.

As part of the Gwinnet Park transaction, JLL Senior Managing Directors Dennis Mitchell, Matt Wirth and Britton Burdette, along with Director Jim Freeman, led the effort. JLL’s debt advisory team representing the borrower was led by senior director Bobby Norwood and senior managing director Brian Carlton.

Atlanta’s Industrial Industry Still Strong

Over the past five years, the infill portion of the Northeast submarket has maintained a vacancy rate on average 260 basis points lower than the Northeast submarket as a whole, according to JLL.

Overall, the Atlanta industrial market kicked off 2024 with more than 4 million square feet of absorption during the first quarter, which equates to approximately 43.7% of total net absorption for all of 2023, JLL reported. Three-quarters of transactions signed in the first quarter were for new spaces rather than renewals, illustrating the strong demand in the market.

Industrial construction in the Atlanta market continued to decline in the first quarter of 2024. Since 2021, the market has averaged 20 starts (representing 7.1 million square feet) per quarter, JLL noted, but at first quarter of this year, only four projects broke ground, totaling 4.6 million square feet. Thus, JLL predicts that the industrial vacancy rate, currently at 7.3 percent, will decline slightly.