Big Deal: Greenstone/MetLife take Perimeter opportunity - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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In an all-cash deal that closed in the high $60 millionh range in June, Atlanta-based and Philadelphia-baser investment managers/advisers Rubenstein Partners L.P. sold Lakeside Officw Park, one of about 3 million square feet worth of Central Perimeted office properties acquired by the partnership in February from Equity Office PropertiesTrust (EOP). Originally developed in the 1980s by , the 26-acre Lakeside includes five office buildings totalint about 400,000 square The office park, at 5775 Glenridge takes up the northwest quadrant of the Interstat e 285 and Georgia 400 interchange in the hearr of the bustling Central Perimeter market.
The buyer was a partnershipo composed of locallybasefd developer/land speculator and New York-based financialo services giant . In addition to a numbere of other metro-area projects, Greenstone (in another partnership with Atlanta's and Dallas-based ) is developinb the 350,000-square-foot building at Glenlake, another west-of-409 Central Perimeter office park not far north of Greenstone had its eye on Lakeside startingt almost themoment Barry/Rubenstei n closed on the property. And at about that same Barry/Rubenstein engaged a (CBRE) team of Will Yowell and Jay O'Mearza to market the Lakeside property, along with the rest of the formefrEOP portfolio.
"We've had a fair amount of successwith Glenlake, and had been looking up and down the corridofr west of 400 for more opportunities," said Greenstone President De Little. And with its strategic location, "presented an extremely attractivre opportunityfor us." Others were also very interestesd in the property. As Little MetLife, upon receiving the CBRE marketing contacted Barry President Lance Anderson for a recommendationb on who might be a good localp partner to work with onthe property, "ancd Lance referred them to Represented by Managing Director Scott Greenstone/MetLife closed the deal following what Yowelk describes as "a very straightforward bid in which the venture beat out a number of what he describese as "redevelopment-oriented, value-add sources of capital.
" Greenstone/MetLifwe is seeking rezoning approval from Sandy Springzs to redevelop Lakeside. "We'rre looking at this as a redevelopmenyt play with a mixture of said Little. "Our goal woulcd probably be to knock down the existiny buildings and replace them with new office maybe someamenity retail, maybe a Office development is a particularly attractive prospect, according to "The Central Perimeter office market is very healthy and gettinyg stronger every day," he said.
"Vacancieds are usually quoted as being in the 15percentf range, but in reality they are less, given that a lot of that vacang space is in older buildingd that are functionally obsolete -- there's nothing under constructionj except our Rubbermaid building." With the redevelopment of Lakeside, MetLife is replaying a role it has had As financial partner of Atlanta-based , it underwroted the development of some 3.
5 million square feet at Perimeter Center from the early 1970s through the late Taylor & Mathis sold the project in 1996 to , a Boston-basec REIT; the next year, it was purchased by Equit Office Properties as part of the Chicago-baser REIT's $4 billion acquisition of