A subsidiary of The Cheesecake Factory has been hit with a $2.7M lawsuit over the sudden closure of a large restaurant in the Brickworks redevelopment.

Culinary Dropout closed in the Brickworks development in West Midtown Atlanta in January, less than two years after it opened.

Asana Partners filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court on April 14 against an affiliate of Phoenix-based Fox Restaurant Concepts after it shuttered the Culinary Dropout eatery in January. The suit says Asana is owed millions in unpaid rent and build-out costs.

The lawsuit names CDO Holding Co. LLC, which is registered to Fox Restaurant Concepts, as a defendant, claiming it guaranteed the 11-year lease for nearly 12K SF at 1000 Marietta St. FRC founder Sam Fox signed the guarantee for the lease, which was filed as an exhibit in the lawsuit.

Culinary Dropout signed the lease in October 2021, opened in fall 2023 and closed Jan. 15, one of nearly a dozen restaurants to fold in West Midtown in recent months.

Asana, which is being represented by Arnall Golden Gregory attorneys Knox Withers and Kelsey O’Neill, claims FRC owes nearly $2.7M, including nearly $1.9M for unamortized tenant improvement allowances and $463K in leasing commissions. Culinary Dropout owes $50K a month for the lease, which will continue to accrue and includes escalation clauses, the lawsuit says.

“Tenant breached the lease by ceasing its business operations in the premises and by failing to pay certain monetary charges when they became due that are tenant’s obligations under the lease,” the suit says. 

FRC hadn’t filed an answer to the lawsuit as of press time, nor did it or The Cheesecake Factory return messages seeking comment. Asana Managing Partner Terry Brown declined to comment.

In addition to Culinary Dropout, Ford Fry’s Superica, Postino WineCafe, West Egg Cafe, Humble Pie and Snooze A.M. Eatery have all called it quits since the start of 2024 in what has been one of the hottest foodie destinations in Metro Atlanta. 

Expensive parking, high rents and fewer-than-expected office workers have all contributed to the struggles for eateries in the area, Bisnow previously reported.

“Rents are too high, the population is too low, and parking is tough. I think a lot of landlords are signing leases for the sake of signing leases,” Peter Kruskamp, president of retail brokerage The Shumacher Group, previously told Bisnow.

Charlotte-based Asana, in a Jan. 13 letter sent from AGG to Culinary Dropout and filed with the suit, demanded that the restaurant operator send it recent financial statements. It was unclear if FRC complied.

FRC, which also owns restaurant chains Flower Child, Zinburger and The Arrogant Butcher, should be required to pay the difference in rents if Asana leases its space to a new tenant for less than what Culinary Dropout was paying, the suit says.

FRC continues to operate a Culinary Dropout in Dunwoody.

The Cheesecake Factory purchased FRC in 2019 for more than $350M. The chain acts as Cheesecake Factory’s “incubation engine, innovating new food, dining and hospitality experiences to create fresh, exciting concepts,” the company said on its website. In 2024, FRC reported full-year sales of $6.4M per location, or around $1,100 per SF.

A battery manufacturer has withdrawn plans for a $2.6 billion factory on 360 acres in Coweta County and must now repay money granted to it by local and state governments.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports Freyr Battery entered into an agreement to sell its 368-acre site south of Newnan to an undisclosed buyer for $50 million. The property is at Interstate 85 and Bethlehem Church Road, south of the Newnan-Coweta County Airport. Freyr purchased the property in late 2022 for $42.2 million.

Freyr had announced its Georgia project in 2022, promising over 700 jobs. It received a hefty incentive package and made Newnan its home base. Freyr has changed its business focus, moving into renewable energy.

In recent months, Coweta County has been the target of data center developers and homebuilders. A $17 billion data center proposal emerged in January, and a nearly 700-home project was pitched in November.

Amgen announced a $1 billion expansion to establish a second drug substance manufacturing facility in North Carolina. This brings the company’s total planned investment in Holly Springs to more than $1.5 billion, building on its previously announced $550 million commitment.

The $1 billion facility will incorporate cutting-edge technologies and sustainable practices. In tandem with the existing facility, these investments will create 370 new jobs in the region, supporting the area’s biomanufacturing hub.

North Carolina’s Economic Investment Committee approved a Job Development Investment Grant that will reimburse Amgen up to $4.9 million yearly across the grant’s 12-year duration. The project is expected to grow the state’s economy by $3.6 billion throughout that period. When fully operational, more than 720 jobs will be generated across both facilities. Construction began in March 2022, and that plant will be operational in 2026.

The firm owns nearly 109 acres at 4130 Friendship Road, and the two plants are slated for delivery there.

Two Trees Management announced the opening of One Domino Square, the first condominium tower to open at Two Trees’ Domino Sugar factory site on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. Located at 8 S. 4th St., One Domino Square features connected 55-story and 39-story towers.

“The building is unlike anything else on the market – and our sales and leasing velocity show that consumers do know and appreciate the difference between a spectacular product and its more generic competition, ” said Jed Walentas, CEO of Two Trees Management. “We are thrilled not only with the execution of this project – with its porcelain façade, jaw-dropping amenities and stylishly appointed homes – but we also greatly appreciate how well One Domino Square meshes with its neighbor buildings throughout the Domino site.”

One Domino Square anchors the Domino Sugar Factory campus, an 11-acre waterfront site. It features condominiums and rental apartments, and more than 45,000 square feet of top-of-the-line indoor and outdoor wellness and recreation amenities spread across five floors.

The City of Scottsdale has agreed to pay back Advanced Semiconductor Materials for the infrastructure requirements for its new north Scottsdale headquarters and research facility. As a quid pro quo, ASM must construct its new 400,000-square-foot facility, add 500 jobs with an average wage of $110,000 and achieve a payroll of $55 million.

The Phoenix Business Journal reports ASM’s expected capital expenditure for its new headquarters would be more than $400 million between the land acquisition, project buildout and equipment housed within the facility.  ASM purchased nearly 24 acres near the southeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Loop 101 — the site of its new headquarters. ASM America bought the land for more than $33 million

ASM designs and supplies wafer processing equipment to customers, primarily for the deposition of thin films — a fabrication process used in semiconductor manufacturing.

ASM’s existing headquarters is at 3440 E. University Drive near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

An off-site construction services company is spending $40 million on a new factory in the Town of Siler City. The town, of less than 10,000, is between Raleigh and Greensboro on US Hwy 421 and 64. Innovative Construction Group (ICG) expects to establish a new manufacturing facility in Chatham County and the Town of Siler City. The company’s capital investment will create as many as 157 jobs over the next five years.

Innovative Construction Group serves building professionals focused on single-family, multi-family, and commercial construction projects. The company provides design services, manufactures wall panels, roof trusses and floor systems, and offers on-site installation to provide a full frame shell construction process. 

ICG’s project in North Carolina will be facilitated, in part, by a Job Development Investment Grant approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee. The project’s plans are also subject to receiving local incentives approvals and finalizing real estate negotiations. 

EnerSys selected Greenville, SC to develop a lithium-ion cell gigafactory to advance battery production in the United States. EnerSys has applied for a comprehensive incentive package through South Carolina and Greenville County valued at approximately $200 million, including short-term and long-term incentives. The Company intends to use a portion of these proceeds, along with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax benefits and potential additional federal funding, to make a $500 million investment with the potential to create 500 high-quality new jobs.

EnerSys is evaluating the development of a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on approximately 140 acres in the Augusta Grove business park in Greenville. The operation would manufacture various form factors of lithium-ion cells for commercial, industrial and defense applications, with a production capacity of four-gigawatt hours (GWh) per year. It would be the company’s second factory in the area.

The company is targeting construction to begin in early 2025 and operations to be online in late 2027.

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