CTO Realty Growth has purchased Ashley Park, a 559,000-square-foot retail center in Newnan, Ga., for $79.8 million. The previous owner was Apollo Global Management, which had bought it for $89.8 million in 2015, according to CommercialEdge information.

CTO John Albright said that the company acquired Ashley Park below replacement costs, adding that, with below-market rents, the asset provides an opportunity for strategic lease-up.

Ashley Park is a 60-acre shopping center at 354 Newnan Crossing Bypass, 38 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta. It receives roughly 6 million visits per year.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Regal and Dillard’s anchor the property, which was 93 percent leased at the time of sale.

CTO Realty Growth is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and operates a portfolio of retail-based properties primarily in higher-growth markets in the United States.

Georgia has seen a surge in data center construction. While some appreciate the benefits in regard to property taxes kicked off from the site, others lament the amount of power and water the centers consume. Legislators have advanced a proposal that would require the state’s largest electric utility to charge data centers for the costs incurred to serve them. The bill has been passed out of a House committee and would still require full House and Senate approval and the governor’s signature.

Under the proposal, Georgia Power would be compelled to bill data centers for infrastructure investments and other costs associated with supporting the facilities. The utility would be prohibited from passing those costs onto residential and small business customers.

Georgia Power customers are paying 37% more for power than they did two years ago. Georgia Power expects electricity demand to increase by 50% by the end of 2030, largely due to new data centers.

The 19-story tower that once housed employees of the Jacksonville Energy Authority (JEA) is now open for bids. JEA moved its Customer Solutions Center and corporate offices to a seven-story building at 225 N. Pearl St. in April 2023. The Jacksonville Business Journal reports the JEA is looking for respondents to convert the office building into apartments.

Respondents are required to document their experience and success in similar projects, which may include downtown, urban core redevelopment or adaptive reuse, positioning another downtown corner for revitalization.

JEA Board will decide whether to approve a purchase and sale agreement for the 347,811-square-foot tower at 21 W. Church St., the former six-story customer center and the Adair Building, a parking garage with around 500 parking spaces and retail space at 421 Laura St. JEA staff will negotiate the agreement based on the recommendation of the evaluation committee.

Gulf Coast Commercial Group spun off Baybrook Passage, a 189,334 square foot shopping center in Webster, southeast of Houston. The center, at 19425 Gulf Fwy., was acquired by SLS. 

Mark Witcher, Jolie Duhon, Chris Cozby, Jim Batjer and Harrison Tye with CBRE National Retail Partners arranged the transaction on behalf of the seller. SLS Properties was self-represented. 

The shopping center was built in 2003 and is anchored by Best Buy and Staples. Additional tenants include Boot Barn, Skechers, and Memorial Hermann, as well as a national roster of food & beverage, medical and service-oriented retailers. At the time of sale, the property was 97.2% occupied by 29 tenants with an average tenure of 18 years. 

Situated at the intersection of I-45 and Bay Area Boulevard, the shopping center is adjacent to Baybrook Mall and more than 3.8 million square feet of retail along the corridor. The location sees 30 million visitors annually with direct exposure to 210,000 vehicles per day, according to CBRE.

Vestar will break ground net week on its massive shopping center in Buckeye, which will feature a Harkins BackLot, a Target, a Safeway and more. The Verrado Marketplace will feature shops, dining, grocery, entertainment and services across 520,000 square feet. Vestar is expected to invest $300 million into the project including all tenant improvements. Other tenants that have been announced for the Verrado Marketplace include Marshalls, Ross and HomeGoods.

Vestar also plans to unveil names of 15 additional national and local retailers that are expected to be part of the retail center at the northeast corner of Interstate 10 and Verrado Way.

The Phoenix Business Journal reports the city of Buckeye is working on designating 2,100 acres just south of Verrado Marketplace into a mixed-use center with various uses, such as retail, entertainment, housing, education and more. Another 600,000 square feet of retail is underway south of I-10 at Verrado Way across three major projects, including the 411,000-square-foot Buckeye Commons and the 100,000-square-foot Roosevelt Commons.

Oglethorpe Power will break ground on a new combined-cycle plant in Forsyth in Monroe County, Georgia. This two-unit, approximately 1,200-megawatt facility will be built on land the company owns, adjacent to the Smarr Energy Facility, an existing natural gas-fired simple-cycle combustion turbine plant that they operate. The development of this new facility will represent a capital investment of approximately $2 billion in Monroe County.

In Talbot County, Oglethorpe will begin construction on a new combustion turbine unit at its existing plant in Box Springs, Georgia. This new, approximately 240-megawatt unit, which will be the seventh unit at the Talbot Energy Facility, is expected to be the most efficient natural gas peaking plant in its fleet. The unit will also feature dual-fuel capability, enhancing year-round resiliency. The development of this new unit will represent a capital investment of approximately $360 million in Talbot County.

Oglethorpe provides power for Georgia’s 38 electric cooperatives.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) would build a nearly 300,000-square-foot research and outpatient cancer treatment center on part of the site of the former Potrero Power Station under a plan approved by San Francisco supervisors. The San Francisco Business Times reported that the project would effectively anchor Associate Capital’s 21-acre Dogpatch neighborhood development.

The 130-foot-tall, 284,444-square-foot building would sit on block 2 of the 21-acre site, where Associate Capital plans to a phased delivery of up to 2,600 housing units, 1.6 million square feet of commercial space, parks and a 250-key hotel.

Redevelopment of the broader Potrero Power Station site, marked by a 300-foot-tall boiler stack and the power station’s proposed conversion into a boutique hotel, has been a priority of city officials for years, reported the Business Times. The site had been used to generate electrical power since the late 19th century. It was the last operating fossil fuel power plant in San Francisco, operated by PG&E, before closing in 2011.

The land is just south of the Chase Center and Pier 70, another redevelopment priority for the city and developer Brookfield Properties.

Courtesy of Transwestern

North Logan Commons, a power center in the suburban city of Loganville, recently acquired by Big V Property Group.

In any other time in commercial real estate history, the sale of North Logan Commons would have been a routine commercial real estate transaction.

But the coronavirus pandemic is not just another time in CRE history, and for Los Angeles-based CIM Group to sell a suburban Metro Atlanta shopping center, it had to extend the closing deadlines numerous times and shave the price by $400K.

“It wasn’t, per se, a specific thing. It was just globally pandemic-related,” said Transwestern Vice President Fred Victor, who brokered the deal for CIM. He added that the sale was among the most difficult he had taken to the finish line in his 20-year career.

New York-based Big V Property Group purchased the 176K SF power center off Atlanta Highway in Loganville this month from CIM for $15.6M.

Big V began negotiating to buy North Logan Commons prior to the pandemic and then put the center — anchored by T.J. Maxx, Dick’s Sporting Goods, OfficeMax and PetSmart — under contract on March 12, a day after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic.

What followed was a string of contract extensions and an eleventh-hour race by Big V to find a new lender after its initial backer dropped out over the retail industry’s health concerns as a result of the pandemic, Victor said.

Big V didn’t return requests for comment as of press time. The firm owns eight suburban retail centers in Georgia, including in Jonesboro, Carrollton and Griffin.

“Fortunately, they just closed a deal on the outskirts of Charlotte and were able to substitute that lender in,” Victor said.

The purchase is an example of the increasing difficulty both investors and sellers have in trading retail properties during a pandemic, especially as retailers shutter for good. For the retailers who do survive, many are seeking rent help to get through the worst of the business fallout from social distancing restrictions.

Two-thirds of North Logan Commons’ tenants are receiving some sort of rent assistance, Victor said, mainly in the form of deferment.

“Very, very minimal [retail investment] activity, which makes this deal even more special. A lot of people are just still sitting on the sidelines,” Victor said. “They’re waiting to see kind of what happens with the pandemic.”