Sunbelt Developers

#13 - Herbert Ames - Lulah Hills

• Tim Wright

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In this episode, Herbert Ames, Managing Director at EDENS shares the story behind Lulah Hills, the major mixed-use redevelopment of the former North DeKalb Mall site on Atlanta’s east side. We discuss his background and the projects that shaped his career, including major retail developments on Atlanta’s west side.

A big focus of the conversation is how Lulah Hills came together. Herbert explains the long history of the North DeKalb Mall property, EDENS’ acquisition process, and the vision to transform an outdated enclosed mall into a modern, community-oriented destination.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube for a behind-the-scenes look at the Lulah Hills redevelopment and what it means for Atlanta’s east side.

Big thanks to our sponsors for supporting this series:
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If you’re looking for commercial real estate in Atlanta, give me a call — I’d love to connect.

More info: https://linktr.ee/timwright.cre

SPEAKER_03

Hey guys, well welcome back to the Sunbelt Developers Podcast. I'm Tim Wright. I'm a commercial real estate broker at Cushman and Wakefield. And today we are blessed to have Herbert Ames here. Herbert's with Edens, and Edens is working on a great project on the east side of Atlanta called Lula Hills. And we're going to get into that. We'll get into his background and other projects, how the Lula Hills project came to be, and just a lot of the cool things about it. So with that, Herbert, thanks, thanks for joining us. You get to be the first one to break in the new studio setup. Yeah, we've got new cameras, we've got new lights, we've got you know the same screens, we've got new sponsors and some of the old ones too. And um so season two. This is like first episode of season two.

SPEAKER_00

So it's an honor to be here and love what you guys are doing. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So um I guess you want to just dive in. Like who who is Herbert Ames? Like where'd you grow up? Like where'd you go to school? Like um just yeah, and the backdrop.

SPEAKER_00

Uh sure. So um I grew up in uh a little small town, Florence, South Carolina. Take take I-20 all the way to I-95, and uh grew up grew up there my whole life. Uh grew up with a commercial real estate broker as a father who was involved in local politics and I guess uh kind of set my my curiosity toward the industry at a very early age. Um and my mother was a school school teacher. So I had um I had that as my as my childhood. And um so uh spent my youth in Florence and then went to the University of South Carolina uh as I graduated high school, and um that's where it all where it all started.

SPEAKER_03

Cool, man. Any sports or early hobbies?

SPEAKER_00

I actually got involved in politics in high school and college. And um I spent a lot of time working on campaigns and things of that nature. And then um yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Were those like like local politics or like state representing politics?

SPEAKER_00

My father was on county council um uh in in in my hometown, and um uh so you get exposed to a lot when you're when your folks are involved.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And local politics is not about Republican or Democrat, it's it's about community service and doing what's right with the community and all that sort of stuff. So um and then as I as I moved into college, worked on some statewide campaigns, and being in Columbia, politics is a much government's a much bigger thing there. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So you're kind of in that. So that's that's interesting. Um I mean what what year do you go to South Carolina?

SPEAKER_00

Um I was a freshman. I gotta think back. Uh I was a freshman in college uh when 9-11. So 2001. Wow. So I remember being in my dorm room when uh 9-11 had graduated in 04 from college.

SPEAKER_03

And was that for real estate or what was the No.

SPEAKER_00

I was actually a political science major. Okay. Oh, this was like real ice. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and um I got into a couple years of college and and decided I needed to make a move and make a transition. And that ultimately led to an internship my junior year at what was then Eden's at Avant. So that was 22 years ago this week that I started my internship at Eden's at Avant. Worked with a great guy who stood the company today, guy named Lyle Darnell. Okay. Um and he showed me had a lot I've had a lot of great mentors uh over the years. Uh Lyle actually came from a retailer background.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And so I really learned the business early on in those first few years, really learning it as a a re from a retailer mindset.

SPEAKER_03

Like a user.

SPEAKER_00

Like he like what was the like just kind of He was uh he he ran real estate for Books a Million. Oh books a million bookstores uh in the nineties. And so in the nineties, you know, the bookstore business was a huge business. And so he came, had done some deals with Mr. Eatons and and the team back in the nineties, and then ultimately came over and um took me on as a, you know, I didn't know what a square foot was. Wow. So starting starting from that to working into um you know a more permanent role, uh it led to uh a full-time position with him and and worked for him for many years there in Columbia.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Very nice. Um I I always ask this, what what was like an early project you remember that was you know really exciting or kind of like you felt like you got your footing with the R.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um God, there's there's there's been a lot. I mean retail is such a special thing because it touches everyone.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And I'll I'll be uh I'm an office broker. Like I like I know retail, like we had Mark Toro in here and he went into all these different like you know, the tenant mix, and I feel like that it's a science that I just I don't I don't I'm excited to kind of get here to be.

SPEAKER_00

Mark's Mark's uh the a pro's pro and he does it very, very well. And um I so you know uh learning the business and learning what makes retail work and why people do what they do, uh and on the backdrop of this whole internet thing that was starting was was really an interesting time to get into the business. Um I get and consumer taste and preferences have changed. I mean, we w Amazon wasn't even really a thing in 2005, right? People were just starting to figure out what that was. It was the internet. And in fact, our CEO, Jodie McLean, will talk about this this uh high-speed internet moment where it became clear that things were going to be shifting, and and we have to be thinking about our places differently than just places of commerce. So, how do you transition from that to something that's a little bit more meaningful, a little bit more connected, a place where people want to spend time, all those things started to occur. But um, I mean, back to your original question, uh, you know, we we gosh, merchants walk out in East Cobb, we redeveloped that um right when the world was changing in the great financial crisis. Uh we started construction in 2009 on that. Um very interesting time to start construction, but uh opened that in 2011, tore down half the shopping center, brought in Whole Foods, um, redeveloped the the rest of the deal. Um gosh, one that was uh a life's a life's worth of of of lessons uh was our our publics on the Upper West Side on Wet Merrier Boulevard that ended up getting um ended up getting caught in a in a litigation issue regarding tax allocation districts that had nothing to do with our site, but a more constitutional issue that that delayed it for a long time.

SPEAKER_03

Um This is the one near like where Moores Mill intersect.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Moores Mill and intersects um in fact the the extension of Moore's Mill to Marietta Boulevard was a whole nother political uh hot potato between the mayor and and our councilwoman over there that that took a few years off my life. Wow.

SPEAKER_03

That's such a note. Like that everybody like that Publix was a real flag in the ground over there.

SPEAKER_00

Trevor Burrus It was a huge flag in the ground. And you ride over there today, that Publix and and we ended up doing the residential with Crescent next door.

SPEAKER_03

Um Do you mind if I fly over? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um that that deal we counted it up a few years ago, and I think it led to about a billion dollars worth of development in that corridor. Um there's now four or five thousand apartments over there.

SPEAKER_03

Um right at Bolton DeForge Comer. This is it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that little strip of Moore's Mill right there between the CVS, that was a huge political hot potato that um, as it turns out, I now use all the time because I take my son to D Bat across the streets. It turned out to turned out to be worth it at the end of the day. But um yeah, so that Publix was a huge deal for this part of town, and it really bridged um kind of what was really West Buckhead to the north, and and this emerging residential district where a lot of the old industrial areas of the west side of town, a guy named Steve Brock, uh Brock built homes, was doing a lot of work in infield development over there, single-family townhomes and so forth. And so this kind of brought both of those together.

SPEAKER_03

Got it. Um let me just get this right. So you're saying this little section here of that's that's what was actually and this this was the that was that was a real fire.

SPEAKER_00

It was a it was a funding debate uh between um some some political folks and uh so what the road just ended right there.

SPEAKER_03

The road ended right there.

SPEAKER_00

It actually dead-ended into what was a CVS that sat right there. And we part of this overall deal was having to move the CVS over there and do it do a new deal for them. And that was really the first thing. This was this was actually an assemblage of about 13 different properties, about 13 acres. Um How did I mean how long was that? Uh we started uh acquiring properties over here in 2005, uh 2006-ish, and then um I think we signed the public's lease in 2007. Okay. And then there was a Supreme Court case that came down shortly thereafter that um uh uh effectively uh eliminated the school board tax increment from being included in uh tax allocation districts, uh, which was a significant chunk of the tax allocation pie when most school districts are about 50 percent of that. So from there, there was a host of challenges and then the Great Recession, there was a host of issues uh the that pursued from there. But we we owned the property and we stuck it out, and um we developed a lot of great relationships with that. Um turns out that the guy that we ended up working with at Invest Atlanta to finish that deal on the TAD side was a guy named Dorian DeBar, who shows up later at Decide to Cab as president of Decide to Cab in a similar capacity. We work with him at North to Cab Mall. And so it was the it was that uh that that relationship that we built there of doing what we said we were gonna do here and follow through that led to a a great starting point in that conversation over at Lula Hills.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you're just set, there's trust, like that's that's awesome. And it is a it's a small world. Yeah, the economic development people they kind of jump around, the brokers they jump around, but there's still a question about it. Yeah yes. Hey guys, I just want to take a second and thank our sponsors for today. Our main sponsor is SHR or Sanji High Roads. David Sanji was one of our guests a couple months ago and really brought an incredible story about his career. Sanji High Roads is a commercial real estate development company that has done almost three billion dollars in development. A couple projects that you might know here in Atlanta is the Hyatt Centric, right behind Linux Mall. There's also the Howell, which is a brand new apartment complex. And the most exciting project that they're working on is the expansion to the Savannah Convention Center. We're really excited to go down there probably early next year to show you guys what's going on. But they've broken ground, it's an almost a$400 million project. It's been in the works for almost 10 years and uh very excited. So if you have any development opportunities or you want to learn more about them, uh please visit sangyhighroads.com. Again, that's sangyhighroads.com. Now back to the show. That is a special project. Like it really is. I mean, uh anybody you talk to about that kind of part of town, like, oh, it's kind of near the public. It's like we just moved and we were looking at a house right off of Moores Mill. And um, my my wife was like, she was real pumped about it being close to this. But okay, so uh you said you is are these the apartments that y'all helped develop? Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So we uh we partnered with Crescent Communities on that. Um and they developed 345 apartments there. Um very successful deal. That was the first deal really out of the ground in this corridor that that led to I mean, you can see all the rest of them now, all that dirt under construction there. Um I think there's two or three more that have been announced um since then. So um real overhaul of that entire corridor for the west side of town. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. And then um what so like I tell me a little bit more about y'all. Do you get like zero zeroed in on one property and it's like this is 110% your focus, or do y'all have like I mean Eden's probably has multiple going, but as far as you like managing projects.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe like to take a quick step back. So Eden's is uh this is actually our 60th anniversary, uh which is uh not that's a long time in the real estate to business real estate development business. Um Mr. Eden was in the uh family food store business. They owned a chain of uh food stores and he left at a very young age, 25, and and started developing grocery stores uh throughout the Carolinas, throughout northern Georgia. Um and so that led to um the capitalization of the company in 1997 with the state of Michigan, 2001. Um JP Morgan and New York State teachers came in um with an infusion of capital. And we grew and grew from there. I think when I started in four, um I think that we had somewhere around 225 assets across really the East Coast.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, maybe a couple of billion dollars in value. Um today we're about$7 billion in value across the country. Um so we're East Coast, West Coast, Texas, um, and Denver. Uh we have we have a place in Denver. Um so uh those and that's about a hundred assets, a hundred places as we call them, uh in that footprint. So um we have a team of about 215 people that spread across those markets, mainly about 13 major markets that we're doing business in. Um and then all retail. So we're a private REIT, um, and and today our our our institutional investors are Blackstone, JP Morgan, and New York State Teachers Retirement System. And so they um they invest at our at our our company level, um, which is a great partnership and allows us to be entrepreneurial and uh operate like a private company and and do creative things. And um we're not subjected to the though we function very much like a public company and we act like a public company in the way we raise money and the way we re- we're we think about things, um the the the private structure of that allows us to be a little more creative and nimble and the entrepreneurial in that regard. And that and our investors see that and they invest they invest again at that corporate level. So very cool. Um so yeah, so I oversee the Southeast, uh, which includes about 22 properties across the Southeast. And then but my my real day-to-day is is obviously the development of the focus on a couple of major projects that we have in the Southeast.

SPEAKER_03

Sure. Well, should we jump in? So Lula Hills, this is the big one. This is like what y'all are working on right now, North Cab Mall. Um I I know we we had it up on the screen. Uh let's see, is this this is it right here? Yeah. I think this is it. Um Okay, so it's called Lula Hills. Where did the name come from?

SPEAKER_00

Um great question. Um it's very hard to name stuff these days, uh first of all. But um so we uh to take a quick step back, we um we had owned two Toco Hills, which is about two miles to the uh to the to the west, um, and we acquired another piece in 2015-16. So we own about 300,000 square feet there. So we kind of got to know this area through that acquisition and the community through that acquisition. Um and then we had the opportunity to pursue this in 2000 um it actually came out too late 2020. Um we were uh, I guess, got control in 2021, in the summer of 2021. We'll get back to that in a minute. Uh but ultimately we came through this naming process when it became a real thing. Um we went through and had um actually an intern um went through and did a whole bunch of research, and she found a letter that Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape planner designer had uh Central Park uh et cetera, had sent to uh Joe Hurt, who is the developer of Druid Hills in the 1890s. Of course, Druid Hills being the neighborhood between downtown Atlanta and downtown Decatur.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that planned neighborhood obviously went on to influence this massive swath of Atlanta up to North Druid Hills, Emory, everything, CDC, everything in between. Um, and he sent a letter that we found in the Library of Congress, this this intern, Zoe. Um and she uh came up with this list of names that were alternatives to Druid Hills. Wow. One of those was to Lula Hills. And we played with that for a little bit. Uh, actually hired a a guy that lives in the neighborhood, a branding guy. And um, in the first three minutes of the conversation, he said, um, well, just just call it Lula Hills. And so um we we went on to study that further with him and came back to Lula Hills. And um so so it's it's it's fun, it's it's whimsical, it's um it's actually feminine, you know. There's there's this feminine piece to it. Um and so which kind of leads to we we we really think about our places from a from a female mindset and that they control about 80 percent of every dollar that's spent in this country. So we are we are thinking about that.

SPEAKER_03

Um I can't help but laugh. I'm all I'm thinking about is my wife when you say that. I didn't know that fat the fact. So retail.

SPEAKER_00

How much money does your wife control in your in your household? Because mine control is more like 98 percent. But that being said, I uh it's either indirectly or directly, I mean that that is how dollars are spent in this country.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So uh when we're thinking about the merchandising, when we're thinking about the design, the aesthetic, um, down to the parking deck. Um the parking deck has to be higher, the the the the the ceiling of the parking deck has to be painted white, it has to be lit. If if a if a woman is going to park in a parking deck, it absolutely has to be clean, safe in every shape of the perception is reality when it comes to that sort of stuff. Down to um the tree grates over over the landscaping. If if if if if a if a woman gets her high heels stuck in that, she's gonna think about that long and hard. So um and a lot of that comes honestly through our leadership, which is we're we're a female-led organization with a um a woman CEO, and and then those details but but those details matter. I mean my buddy Eric Weatherholz always talks about retails and the details. And so if you think about all that and how you approach these things, all of that matters. And so um, while it is hard to name something, and actually that was a very popular um we get a lot of feedback, positive and negative, on the name of Lula Hills. It it's sticking a little bit now, but um and uh we had a lot of positive feedback, but we had some very strong negative feedback. What was the negative like I for me, like change people just people didn't like change, and it's like, well, it's North Decat, this is my mall. And like, well the mall's closed, guys. Yeah. We bought it, it was closed. Yes. Like they had shut down. I took my son when we were in diligence, and there was a fire escape, and that was how you got into the AMC at that time. You you walked through a fire corridor to get there. So like this this notion that this thing was going to be recast as a thriving enclosed mall again was was kind of just not not not happening. But peep peep people are scared of change. People don't like change, so you you you just got you worked through that. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Lula Hills. I I really I like this letter that you're talking about, like the all the other names that were. There's some history behind it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because it was it was a it was about thirty or forty names and they were pretty interesting. But but obviously Tolula, there was Tolula Gorge already. Yeah. Of course.

SPEAKER_03

My brain went to like Luao and Hawaiian, sort of. That's that's like when I heard Lula from I was like, Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Like we could go with that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I was just just telling. But yeah, uh Tolula Gorge is an incredible place. Yeah that's I like that. Um tell me tell me about the acquisition. Like, how did that come about? Was it it was closed down, um and bidding process.

SPEAKER_00

So the what's fascinating about this this piece of property, um this was first opened in 1965. So a guy named Scott Hudgens um grew up in South Fulton County, went to World War II, won a Purple Heart, comes back, uh starts a home building business with his father. This was one of his first commercial developments. Um he goes on to be this massive pioneer in the retail world in Atlanta and has flown largely under the radar in that regard. Um he passed away in 2000. I think there was a stretch in the 80s where he he touched either built, redeveloped, repositioned seven or eight major Gwinnett Place Mall, Lakeshore up in uh Gainesville, the mall at Glen Glenn Mall down in um Brunswick. Um he re he repurchased North to Cab Mall in 85, 86, 84, 85 with Cal like Fairview. And they re they they added about two or three hundred thousand square feet to it, uh uh rebranded as Market Square to Cab, um, Cobb. I mean he had a prolific career. He ended up um partnering with Ben Carter in 2000, 99, 2000 on the Mall of Georgia, and he passed away shortly thereafter. But a phenomenal guy, apparently, uh, from what I a little bit unable to read about him in the history and the people that I've I've talked to, but he this was a very pioneering place in 1965. It was the first enclosed mall in the Atlanta market. So that was just this this the start of a very revolutionary thing in our country. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember 285, was that? 285 was not there yet. Uh that was planned, but it was not yet there yet. And and interestingly enough, so this is this is uh Stone Mar Stone Stone Mountain uh freeway here. And so that initially, there was a plan for that to go all the way through Emory and into downtown Atlanta. Wow. And so that was killed in the 70s and and early 80s, and the remnants of that were were were the uh Freedom Parkway, where the Carter Center is. Yeah. So that was supposed to connect all the way through into downtown.

SPEAKER_03

And 400 was supposed to come down, but you know, this neighborhood here, they they really they're good at fighting. I'm glad they did.

SPEAKER_00

Um because I think it would have really I mean you could see what the interstate did south of downtown and and so forth. But um so so this was this very, very pioneering place. First enclosed mall. Everybody you wanted to be there. This was uh a riches, so so The iconic downtown department store was making its way out to the suburbs for the first second time. Lennox would have been first. Lennox, of course, was an open-air mall when it was built in 1959.

SPEAKER_03

And that was the suburbs then.

SPEAKER_00

Very much the suburbs. This was very much the first ring suburbs back then. This mall was out positioned about six or seven years later with North Lake Mall. Uh that was up at 285 when that mall opened. And then, of course, out to Cab Mall, and there was other malls here, there, and everywhere at that point. This mall went on uh to the 80s, and when Scott Hudgens came back and redeveloped it, uh redeveloped it, expanded the wings on there at the north and the south. Um and and it kind of looks like a battleship. Yeah, so so the dark square up at the top was the original Rich's uh Rich's actually owned that building um and the parcel around it. Uh that eventually, of course, became Macy's uh with the acquisition at some point in the eighties, early nineties. Okay. Um so And then this was part two, you say? Uh that was mostly the main mall there. The two wings on the side were really the the expansion. Um AMC and Marshall's uh still sit on the right side today, uh right there.

SPEAKER_03

Y'all kept them around uh we did for Lula.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Um going through that right now. Uh and then ultimately Catalike Fairview uh sold the mall in the early 2000s to Charlie Hyndon, which of course is a prolific name in in Atlanta retail. Um he came in with a plan to put Costco here. Uh 01-02 uh is when he closed on the property and had that plan. Um neighborhood fought him, uh, traffic concerns, etc. And then ultimately he sold the property to Sterling uh out of Miami and Lenar in 2013-14. They ended up buying back what was the Macy's at the time, so they so they reacquired, put the put the puzzle back together.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and that's really the a major issue. People say, why can't we redevelop all these malls? Most of these anchors uh control either through long-term, ridiculously low ground rents or or they own them outright.

SPEAKER_03

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SPEAKER_00

Uh putting the putting this thing back together is part of the thing. And then if you if you see a dead mall, there's probably a good reason why it hadn't been put back together because those those acres control every aspect of everything you're doing out here. And so working with them can be can be fun and a challenge.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00

Um so ultimately uh Sterling comes in, Lamar comes in in a JV, and they propose a Costco as well. Neighborhood again pushes back. Um, and ultimately they decide to sell the property in 2020. Um they closed the interior of the mall in 2020 and put them all on the market in 2021. Excuse me, in December of 20. Um they put them all. Um we actually didn't didn't win the initial bid. Um so that was it pretty competitive? Uh yeah, there was a lot of interest. Uh a lot of interest. I think people saw the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They saw gosh, uh in this swath of Atlanta, you're talking about and we we look at an 18-minute drive time. That's that's basically what you're gonna get from the consumer is 18 minutes. Maybe you get a little bit more, but maybe you get a little bit less, but generally it's about 18 minutes. So 725,000 people,$40 billion buying power in this trade area. And so if you think 85 up to really kind of I 20, but but that swath up to Tucker, going out towards Stone Mountain, there's a significant population in Northeast Atlanta that was really not being served. And so if you go back to, you know, really Buckhead and Pond City Market, and then you've got everything over here, there really wasn't much opportunity there. Yeah. So we started to see that a little bit at Toco Hills on the on the backside of our second phase of redevelopment there, where some of the national names like Ulta and J. Cree were starting to pop up and say, hey, this makes a lot of sense. So that started getting us paying attention a little bit more to what was happening over here. Um and this idea that you could really create a place to aggregate some brands and create a really a return to regionality, right? This this notion that this was once a pretty significant retail outlet.

SPEAKER_03

This is good retail. Not good, real estate. It's good. It's a good location. It's just good dirt.

SPEAKER_00

And what's what's really interesting too is that these early malls, the 60s malls, a lot of those are still very, very insulated into the communities. Um this is surrounded by single family homes, um different than perhaps what you may see at Gwinnett Place Mall, right? So so everything over here is surrounded by so that so part of our our vision here is to reconnect this mall to the neighborhood. This was actually a single-family neighborhood that got cut off to develop the mall. So how do we how do we bring that back together? Yeah. But if you think about some of the malls that were built in the 80s, even the late 70s, it was all interstate-based. And so the outparcel development and everything has has made that challenging, and that you're you're recreating something in this sea of other commercial uses where we have a real unique opportunity here to create something that's really already in the neighborhood. Yeah. Already connected. So people saw a real opportunity here. We didn't we didn't win. We came came in second. Um, and ultimately the deal came back to us. So they just weren't able to perform or um You know, it was uh the there was a very, very um the the seller had been through uh an eight or nine year zoning uh challenge with with the neighborhood, and basically they were selling it as is and said, we're not gonna love you let you have time to go get this rezoned, which they had just spent six or seven, eight years, whatever they they did trying to do. And so ultimately, um I think the the the prospective purchaser at the time um asked for a little bit more time to go get some zoning done, and they declined, and so they came back to us, and um um there was a lot of folks nipping there trying to get in the deal. And um I I remember distinctly uh July 4th, 2021 weekend, um we had a conversation and our CEO was like, just go put it under contract, go do the diligence in 30 days. And I'm like, Jody, I don't I don't I don't know that that's realistic. And um we can't this is in 2031 where you couldn't even get a you couldn't even get a survey on a house in 30 days. Uh the market was just so screwy.

SPEAKER_02

You know.

SPEAKER_00

And this has it, this has everything you want in a in a redevelopment site. It's got a six by six culvert underneath it, it's got environmental, it's got all these things. And like so long story short, we we put it under con we put it under agreement. Uh we had finished diligence before we had the PSA executed, and we ultimately ended up closing in September of 2021.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um so that was you know, from the time we got awarded the deal around July 1st-ish uh to September. Um, and then we pursued our zoning uh almost immediately thereafter. We were we were starting a neighborhood. We were we were already started a lot of neighborhood meetings and and and county meetings, et cetera. But we we we immediately rolled into a rezoning process from there.

SPEAKER_03

Again, not the retail or like developer kind of had like um I mean the zoning like how big of a change is that like it's already retailed now. I guess you needed zoning for the homes, like the townhouses and the apartments and there was no residential zoning whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00

So it was all general commercial um all whatever. And so um we we had a significant uphill battle um towards uh the development plan that we thought we needed to to make this thing work, which was uh ultimately about two and a half million square feet. Um so two and a half million square feet uh we ended up being zoned for 1,800 residential units. Um 200 of those could be townhome with 1,700 being multifamily, but a cap of 1,800, um 350,000 square feet or so of retail. Uh we have zoning for a hotel and office if the market were to come back on that.

SPEAKER_03

I saw when I was researching this, I I saw y'all had some plans for office.

SPEAKER_00

So uh as this place, as as as the place starts to really uh reveal itself, right? And we we just had a big announcement this week with some of our retail, which will start that um in essence. But whether it's the hotel, whether it's the office, uh people I think um they need to see what's happening here on that front before an office or a hotel conversation really makes sense. Um so we're gonna be patient on that and do the right thing. But um, we're starting to get a few calls. Um medical office seems to be a very popular conversation, uh, especially in a part of the world where medical is driving everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So six billion dollars of healthcare development in this part of the world. CHOA just opened obviously last year, uh a year ago, um, bringing$4 billion into that campus, 12,000 employees, just kind of between that and what Emory's doing over here. Emery's looking to expand further, as I understand it, in the greater neighborhood. So that brings uh lots of opportunities down the road. But it what it also does is it really seeds this retail demographic with an extraordinarily educated, affluent, diverse uh customer that, again, had nowhere to go. And so that really was driving the retail conversation here is there's something that can be done here. And and you're seeing that now in anthropology, for instance. One of our announcements this week is is both in ponds and they're in bucket. So this is what they were seeing is a complete void. They were missing this customer altogether here. Design within reach is another one that's on the west side. 9,300 square feet. To be able to pull them into a project at this stage. We're talking to some other folks that are that are new to market that that this now has their attention that we're working on leases with. So that demographic and the way retailers think about things today is a lot of data-driven analytics, of course. Where's their customer coming from if they're already in a market? Where are they missing? And this was a huge void for that.

SPEAKER_03

Just to get going on the office. We should talk about that. Yeah. From everything like Medley is about to be 100% leased. I mean, Cushman, if we moved up Boringer-Ingelheim group over if they they're expanding. Uh we've got a couple other deals that are going to take the remainder and the rents are strong. And Avalon, we there's been bidding wars over the remaining spaces there. Like absolutely like for real bidding wars of like give us best and final, which is kind of unheard of in the office world. So I I'm a little biased, but like I think it's it's time for the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_00

And I think what and and and and and Mark's great at that. Um and we do have uh our Mosaic District in DC is probably our our closest thing that we have to this is probably our flagship asset. And we have office there, a very, very successful office. So it the the the place drive- I mean, Poncity Market is another example of the place driving that. Buckhead Plaza in in Buckhead, another example where cousins put a ton of money into making that a great place.

SPEAKER_03

And they're now it's a wait list to get in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you're we just left because they were going to charge us too much rent. So the the the the the idea that this this ground floor matters is and we see that consistently. So on the on the residential, we we see typically it's about 17 to 18 percent residential rent premium when these deals are in our projects, and that's that's across the I don't know, eighteen or twenty or so deals that we've done like that. Yeah. The play the the ground floor is a significant driver of what happens above.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. That's even happening here at the center. I mean, you see they've they've got the food courts coming in, or food hall, they see it the right way. But um so yeah, it that should that should trigger a lot of activity. But um I'll I'll click over. You sent me kind of like a little slide deck here. This is what it looks like as of a month ago. It's kind of Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like this is real time, pretty much real time. So you're looking um from Largeville Highway, you're looking west. Okay. Um the site is almost completely demolished except for the AMC and the Marshalls um up in the upper left corner. Uh AMC was a 16-screen uh location for them, and we downsized, we worked with them, recast their least, and they're now 11 screens. So we've downsized them. Um we've also had some other uh theater closures in this part of the world.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, what what's your take on movie theaters? I mean, it's I know it's it's very lumpy, like uh, you know, the right picture comes out and everybody goes their street. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00

It's a product thing right now. And and we've we've we AMC has been a tremendous partner to us um and and and very great sharing their thoughts on the industry. Uh it's a pro it's a product thing. But what we know is that if there's a great if there's great product out there, people will people will go. And when there's great product out there, it creates buzz and that creates more box office sales and all those things. So I think I think they're kind of going through what retail went through, what office is going through right now, where they're right-sizing the number of screens in the United States. Regal just closed a 24-screen deal on 85 there at Shallford. And Ipic at Collins work. Yeah, I think, um, which was unfortunate because that that was a fairly new deal. Yeah. And I think somebody will probably take that, is my my view. Um smaller, smaller footprint. But I think that the um I I do think that net Netflix not buying uh Paramount's probably a good thing.

SPEAKER_03

So their stock has like totally rebounded.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I think we I think we we see runway there. Yeah. Um we still think it's a um uh a great component to have. It's a traffic driver, it's an experience, and I think we need to get back to having product. And I think it's coming. I think the product's coming. But um I mean my kids just went to go see um.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know what the movies are.

SPEAKER_00

It was uh uh I'll I'll think of it in a minute.

SPEAKER_03

But not the K-pop movie. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00

It was the one with um the basketball player, and I'm drawing a blank. But anyway. Um we we feel like and they're gonna renovate this entire location, so top to bottom. So it'll be a basically brand new situation. And there's been a theater here, and that's another thing about these malls, is there's this there's this historical communal value that you get from these places that have been so significant in these communities for a long time. I mean, the stories that we get from people's first dates. My first job was here. Um Lily, who's on our leasing team, her grandfather had a shoe store here. Just like there are there are um these emotional attachments to these sites in that in that case where um uh that you can't get anywhere else. You can't you can't recreate that. So um trying to trying to take those emotions and memories and and and reconstitute those into something current and modern and and and forward-looking is um is kind of the task.

SPEAKER_03

But yeah. I mean it was it's kind of that that town square for that that part of the thing.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it was it was it was the it was the entertainment, it was it was commerce, it was all of those things. Uh and now we're we're just rethinking how to do that in in these in these sites. But um and and most importantly, we're taking the retail from 700,000 square feet to 300 plus. So you're you're right-sizing the overall retail footprint, uh which obviously we've needed to do. I mean, we haven't built retail really in this country of significance since the Great Recession. I mean, open-air retail leading into the Great Recession was the leading growth driver in real estate, and it came out of the Great Recession being the the least productive. So we we are, I think right now, I read some stat, actually I think it might have been from Cushman, uh maybe 0.25 percent of our existing inventory is new development, and that's about half of where it historically is. So we're not building new retail. The retail that's that's out there today. Our retail stock in this country is about five and a half percent vacancy. So compare that to office. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

It's over 20. Yeah. But if you say that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_00

At 5.5% vacancy in this country in retail?

SPEAKER_03

Wow. I mean the Trevor Burrus, and that accounts for all the dead malls out there. Sure. That's a part of that dominant.

SPEAKER_00

But if you look at like North Flake Mall, which is which is transitioning to more of a uh officey type situation, medical office-y type situation. Yeah. But what's happening here is this this this uh right-sizing of the retail footprint in this country. And so retailers now don't talk about well, my online sales and my brick and mortar sales, it's just one conversation now. Like it doesn't matter. Like it's a it's a brand awareness thing, it's a customer acquisition thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well what we know now is that when a when a retailer opens a store in a zip code or a trade area that they weren't represented, their online sales go up. Interesting. So so 85% of of all retail transactions still occur in a brick and mortar store. So that's 16%, 45% of the 16%, 15% of online transactions actually still occur in a in a retail store or used a retail store in some format. So you may buy online, you may pick up. You got kids? Yeah. Yeah. So you're you're we didn't use Amazon until we had kids as a good brick and mortar retail person than I am, uh, but then that quickly disappeared.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, was that that was like a principal?

SPEAKER_00

That was like a principle in the household, which my wife fought me on. But um my son's now 10, so we've been at it for a while. We've gotten really good at it.

SPEAKER_03

You probably have a box showing up at your house every day.

SPEAKER_00

Every day, every hour in some cases. But uh it it it it's not replaced our trip to the grocery store. It's not replaced how we shop and engage. It's just it's just complimented that in that way. So we're creating opportunities for customer engagement, customer acquisition, uh, people to spend time. And if we can if we can get your time, if you take your family to Lula Hills and you spend three hours there, you're probably gonna spend some money. Yeah. And depending on what we have here to offer, you're gonna spend a lot of money. So so that's how that all kind of functions back together. But it's no longer this this oh, there's online and there's this. It's that's more conversation.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

Cool. Um, can you just walk us through so this is the this is the site plan. This is this is accurate, this is up-to-date. Um, yeah. Okay. So yeah, we saw Publix over here, AMC Marshalls, and so this is really that kind of like town square, or at least like the main boulevard here.

SPEAKER_00

So Lula Avenue is what you see from Lawrenceville, uh, really bisecting the site there. Um, and that becomes our main street. Cool. So um we're under we're under construction right now with all of the site work that you see here. So we we call it the U. So publics to the first phase of residential there on the right side with uh Crescent communities down to the uh existing mall and the green spaces and then up through the townhomes. Um that's really our first phase. That's about 240,000 feet of retail. It's 303 uh multifamily units with crescent, uh Crescent and our townhome partner, Empire Homes, closed in December. Cool. Okay. So those are 92 for sale townhomes, which we're very excited about. They're under construction there as well. So December and the closing with Crescent was really the the first phase, um, the first real vertical movement on the site was was that building. They're actually gonna have a groundbreaking, uh groundbreaking, um, even though they've well broken ground next week. Um we're very excited about that. Uh, but and the ability to to raise to raise equity there um was was huge and a very challenging market. I think you don't have to quote me on this, but I th there may have been two or three in-town multifamily closings last year for development. Wow. And Crescent, I think, had two of them. Um so just just a really interesting market in terms of uh where where the interest rates, cap rates shifted to allow for new development. And certainly construction costs have not helped any of that conversation. But um very excited about that. And then um what's not really out there right now is is rangewater real estate. Um we've partnered with on the second phase of of residential, which is the building there across from the publics, there in the middle of the site.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, you can see their amenity deck will be right there overlooking the park space.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's sharp.

SPEAKER_03

Is this the hotel here?

SPEAKER_00

Um that's contemplated to be a hotel. We're actually uh at least right now with a with a uh 15,000 square foot um retail user. Cool. Um that that is very, very exciting to for the project to to uh to work on. Um very, very big name that we're very excited about. Well um I wish I could tell you what it is, but I'll report back.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Um so so Range Water will close in September October uh on that deal. And start construction, uh putting another 285 units in the mix, uh another 40,000 square feet of retail there in that building. And we we will own our retail and control our retail and the retail parking.

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Powell Tell me about that dynamic. So like Crescent and Rangewater, like was Crescent like, hey, why didn't you give us another look for I I don't know how that dynamic or they're like, we're tapped out, like go to somebody else if you want more apartments.

SPEAKER_00

Um I don't know if I'm stepping on toes or No, yeah, it it it was a um it was a healthy competitive situation. Okay. Um we we we love our partners, um and um it it was a healthy competitive situation. Right. Um I think I think they are seeing what this story is is becoming, and so um Rangewater uh wanted wanted to be a part of it. Um Crescent uh wants to be a part of it too. And so um Yeah. Okay. Uh we're we're working right now, so we're we're Rangewater uh again is is under contract and working toward a closing uh in the fall, and we are working to finalize a PSA on our third phase, which would be right here.

SPEAKER_01

That's part of it.

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, and and that's our last building that has ground floor retail.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Another 25,000 square feet of retail there, which which is important because it actually completes the the retail experience. Yeah. It completes Lula Avenue, which is the heart of the project. Um and so very excited about that. And and I think the r the real dynamic here is working to make sure you're you're balancing the timing of these deliveries. So that'll be 900 plus units in a short amount of time, but making sure that you're giving it space to open and lease and do well. Uh and then we have some flexibility on what we do in the rest of that block. We could do more multifamily, we could do senior living, we could do more townhomes potentially.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um there's really not been a lot of townhome product in this part of the world, uh, but but a very, very um strong appetite uh for for more.

SPEAKER_03

So hey guys, I just want to take a second and thank today's sponsors. Uh, this episode is brought to you by USA Cabling Technologies and Solutions. Alex Morris and his team are just the most incredible partners. They've helped us get our studio going here. Anything that you need for low voltage or audiovisual needs in your own build-outs or office suites, they are just a plus. So if you want to learn more about them, you can go to their website usacablingtech.com. Again, that's USA CablingTech.com. Now back to the show.

SPEAKER_00

What about is this these are just kind of placeholders or yeah, so um these are all individually owned out parcels that that that would obviously follow you know a mall development back in the day. Yeah. Um so we we have actually purchased one. Um this is an old gas station at at North Druid, right there, uh right there at North Druid and and right there where your cursor is. Um an old minicy on the other side of the street. Okay. Um right there.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna pop over to this gives a better thing.

SPEAKER_00

That little minic key right there. Um the other side.

SPEAKER_03

Uh there.

SPEAKER_00

You got it.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Right there.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um kind of a threshold moment. It was on the market. We had the opportunity to acquire it, and um it really is a front door for the project from that perspective. Uh just signed a lease with Refuge Coffee Company, which is a great idea. So uh very, very excited about what and what and they have a great mission. Um, but being able to work with them, um, they've done a gas station before.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. That's uh pretty close to Clarkston.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's like we're we're not far from Clarkston. Yeah. Um but but being able to do something with those guys, uh, create a community space that's right there as a front door. Well, it'll be branded with with Lulu, of course, in some fashion. But um, that should open the spring. So we'll we'll we'll be able to create a little bit of a showroom for what we're doing and and an experience there um so that the community can engage with what it is, but it'd also be a kind of a quasi-leasing office and be able to meet folks for tours and so forth there. So that's cool. I like that. Yeah. Um but but the rest of it's fine. I mean, it's not something that um of course you would love to own all of that, but you'd probably go broke or die trying. So um the the the notion of if we get the main if we get Lula right, Lula Avenue right, yeah, and the retail that we're talking to uh sees that that stuff will figure itself out.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um you got a lot, we've you've been off enough. Yeah, we've got plenty to say, Grace Avery.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so that that's an old Pier one on this image, but that's now the new Chick-fil-a that relocated, um, which by the way is the Chick-fil-A at Lula Hills, officially, and your app. Officially. Yes. You can get your Chick-fil-A sandwich there.

SPEAKER_03

They're on it.

SPEAKER_00

Um from our Lula Hills branded Chick-fil-A, which is fun. But um, yeah, so it's it's really about what happens on Lula Avenue. Like let's get off of North Truth Hills, let's get off of Larsville Highway where you're going 60 miles an hour. Let's get off, park our car and uh or walk here.

SPEAKER_01

Get you on the code.

SPEAKER_00

Um, another key element of this project that we're um we're we're working on, this came with our our tax allocation funding from Dorian and his crowd at Decide to Cab. Um and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Michael Thurman, and who was CEO of the time, who was a big fan, um, also a fellow Gamecock, but a big fan of what we were doing here and wanting to see something special happen. And um and that really I mean we would not be here without um that partnership on the TAD stuff uh to secure the increment finance, tax increment financing um to really pull this off. When interest rates switched hard, uh we we we explored every option and then and uh they were they were tremendous partners and are tremendous partners. But part of that was this connectivity from our site to Medlock Park. Um so we are funding a trail from our site through the 20 acres of the lower site, was as we call it, which is the south creek of the peach the south fork of the Peach Street Creek, which runs there to the left of the community garden. Yeah, so we will cross the creek uh into the Medlock Park neighborhood. That's that's it right there.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00

So we own about 20 acres down here, and the other side of the creek is the Cloud Shepherd Nature Preserve, which is about 40 acres. Yeah. So in essence, you're gonna have about 60 acres worth of worth of open space preserve right at the back door of the project.

SPEAKER_03

What an amenity for all these townhouses. Oh, it's a huge driver.

SPEAKER_00

Um and and from from the connectivity to Medlock, there's already a trail from Medlock to Emory. There'll there'll be about a 16-minute bike ride to get to Emory's campus. Oh, that's cool. So a direct connection from here to Emory without having to get on a major road um through through uh a bike path, walking path is tremendous. And so uh big big deal for the community in the neighborhood to to do that. Um but we obviously saw the opportunity there too to provide that connection.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Uh can you share what uh you were talking about before we got rolling about this this uh it's showing up here on Google, but um y'all had some people doing donuts in the parking lot?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was kind of a funky time coming out of COVID when we when we bought the site, and um like many other sites throughout Metro Atlanta, they this became like a hot spot for donuts, and so the neighbors started to call and complain, and we started looking at options to fence the entire site, and it just got to be ridiculous. And I was meeting somebody out there one day uh and I saw a truck driver hop out and I just asked him what he was doing. He's like, I'm just taking a quick snooze. I said, Hey, why don't you tell your buddies? Like, y'all can just have at it, just make it a make it a truck stop for a while. And um ultimately I I think I was out there another 45 days later, and there might have been 60 trucks. So just filled it up. So we killed the uh we killed the street racing and the donuts. Um, we created a a noise issue from all the trucks in the parking lot at night. So it it it it ultimately all went away when we started demolition, which was good. But um, you gotta get creative. Uh we also um from our acquisition till really the day we tore it down, there was a f filming going on here.

SPEAKER_03

Got um uh Stranger Things was this.

SPEAKER_00

It was not Stranger Things, um, much to my son. My son's watching it now, and he's like, that would have been so cool. Stranger Things was there. I was like, that was Gwynette. Sorry, son. Yep. Um but we did have uh we had Ozarks uh here, one of the final scenes, um Electric State, which was Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown were here, they they created a a old mall, whatever um fit right in, fit fit to fit the bill. But um yeah, we we we we actually generated a fair amount of revenue from that. Um film industry, as you well know, is huge here. Um and so we want to do our part. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Got it. Okay, so we're we're well under construction. What's what's delivery? Like when when can I go and walk down?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you can you can go uh if you go back to that if you go back to that aerial, you you AMC and Marshalls are still open today, just for the record. Uh, you can go see a movie today. Um the first phase of residential will open Q end of Q1 27. So we're about 13 months away.

SPEAKER_02

It's exciting.

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, Publix will open um actually a little ahead of schedule, right around uh the end of March next year. Okay. Uh that will also include the the retail around our green spaces. And then the Crescent building, um, which has about 40,000 square feet, will open um kind of Q3 at 27.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um so we got a little bit more time on that. But um, yeah, so you'll have about 240,000 square feet of retail open and operating by the fall of 27 on site. And then come Q1, early Q2 of 28, you'll have another uh call it 55,000 square feet uh open as well within the rangewater and then the f the the freestanding retail building there at our main street, our our our main intersection. Yeah. It's exciting. It's very exciting.

SPEAKER_03

What uh I gotta ask about the office portion portion again. Where where would you put that on this site? I like this kind of looked like a great little corner, but I mean you you said that y'all are talking about a lease already.

SPEAKER_00

Um Well, we have an opportunity uh up on Larso Highway right there. Um so we we could that's about two acres site right there. Okay. Um we also have some flexibility in a few other places on the site, but okay.

SPEAKER_03

Got it. So the yeah, the the main this is all pretty much spoken for, like the office would be an add-on later. Yeah. Cool. Um what else can I ask you about this? This is this is really exciting. I I like I really wasn't like super aware of the project, um, but I know y'all have you know slowly rolled it out and now like as of this week, you know, making big announcements and starting making.

SPEAKER_00

It was a big week for the team. Um Anthropology, design within reach, Herman Miller, um Honeysuckle Gelato, uh Wes Jones and his crowd. Uh his mom lives in Decatur, she's like super pumped.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um Fire Pit Tavern is is a great um great spot. Um down on Memorial Drive. Uh they got birdcages, their sister restaurant. So this stuff's starting to starting to roll. Yeah um you'll see some more announcements hopefully soon.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00

Excuse me. But um yeah, it it's it's these malls are are um excellent opportunities. They take um tremendous partnership with the municipalities. Um and it doesn't stop just with getting a TIFF deal done. I mean, the we we we've taken three or four tours with the DeCab County staff, um, bringing them out here, letting them get bought into what it is that we're up to. This is your community. Like this isn't just you checking off plans when they go in to to to make sure that the seat count matches the grease trap uh application. Right. This this is this is changing a a huge portion of of of East Atlanta and and DeCab County. And it's like Michael Thurman told me, he's like, I uh we need to show people that we can do big things in the cab. And I I think I think it's starting to starting to resonate. Um that this this list of of retailers that we announced this week is is just kind of just starting to to share what what this place can be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So very, very excited about where we are and um and where things are headed.

SPEAKER_03

Well, it's exciting to watch and excited to go check it out when it comes out.

SPEAKER_00

We'll have to get you out there on site. Um we've we now have vertical construction starting um you know in earnest, so a lot more to see out there rather than just dirt and pipes, but um a lot of fun stuff happened on site.

SPEAKER_03

Aaron Powell That's cool. Um what's your what's your take on like the overall market? And I I'm curious, like what do you see coming down down the pipeline? I like I know that the debt world's weird interest rates and all that. Like I'm just I'm curious what your take is on on the big picture.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's uh it's interesting. Um it's a very interesting world right now, um as we s as we sit here and talk right now. Right. Um we we we've dealt with tariffs, we've dealt it just uh every every everything that we could could have been thrown at, um you know, inflation coming out of the the the last few years to then tariffs and then what just confusion. And so um investors and and retailers like consistency and and and things. So um you know, we do the best we can to focus on creating the best experience in the best place we possibly can. And we think if we do that, the rest of the noise will kind of figure itself out, uh, that the consumer will win and we'll we'll be able to bring folks here and let them experience that. But um the retail world I think is is is very healthy right now, despite kind of this K everybody talks about the K economy, and and I don't discount that at all, because I think that's real. Um but uh despite all the noise, retailers are still expanding, they're still growing, and and they're finding that that places like this are great places for them to be.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So creating those opportunities. But I mean uh five percent vacancy in our world is like nuts, uh, right? I mean it's a crazy number. So it's harnessing that and creating creating great experiences and great places that that can give these retailers a place to go engage and and and and find and acquire new customers.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um so we're here downtown. Yeah. What's your take on all the stuff that's happened here? We got Centennial UR soundtown.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's it's it's a lot and it's fantastic. I think downtown has long needed this, and it you know, it goes back to the development of Summerhill and the and the what happened over there at Turner Field, and it's bleeding over into here. And it's really great to see. I hadn't been down here in a little bit, um a few months, but uh this hotel just opened, um, the stuff that that that uh John Birdsong and and and David are doing over there at South Downtown is is it's really hard work.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean really hard work. I think it's um it's it's it's it's noble work, first of all, because I think our city needs that to be what this city can be and what this region can be. And it's not just the city, it's the region. Let's let's be honest. But I think harnessing the amount of traffic and and and um uh trips that are already occurring here and keeping them here for events or MART or or whatever the event is that gets people down here, keeping them here, keeping them here for an extended period of time um is gonna be important. And I think these venues are gonna do that. The Cosm thing looks amazing. I can't wait to go check that out. Um and then split apart coffee over uh Dale's a Dale's a f old friend. We've done some deals with Dale, like him buying into that vision is fantastic. So I what's happening here and what is one of the most iconic buildings that we have in town. Um the the CP guys are not scared to take on really fun, big, big uh uh things, and that's that's what we need. That's what we need in downtown, but we need more of.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot of great things. I mean, what what what Toro's doing at Medley is fantastic. Um what what's happening down here? I mean, it's just there's a lot of energy in Atlanta right now, which is which is awesome. The World Cup's a huge player in that, too.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um within a hundred days now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, that's wow. And that's eight Super Bowls. Yeah. Impact. Yeah. Which is another Super Bowl. Come here. And another Super Bowl. Uh yeah. Your your your piece with with uh Corso was fantastic. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That was a lot of fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean it what this is what um I think what what Tom Cousins envisioned forty, fifty years ago when he was acquiring all the land down here. Yeah. How to string this together to make it a more of a a real place.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Being down here, like I mean, it it took some time getting the studio set up. So we'll go to lunch and stuff over at the Omni next door. And I mean, it's you just living here, you don't realize how many conventions and conferences and like that. Oh, yeah. It's insane. So we we had milk William Pate come in, he was like, we have fifty million people that come through the city every year. And you just wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, we got the I I've always been told Atlanta has about a hundred thousand hotel rooms. You may know a better stat than that. But I I've lived here for twelve years, and when I would travel over here every week, basically, um, before I moved, uh sometimes there would be weeks where you couldn't find a hotel room anywhere. Wow. Not even just downtown. You just couldn't find a hotel room. So the It's a real thing. It's a real, real impact. It goes unnoticed for a lot of people that live and work outside of downtown every day, but it's a huge driver of what could be very special down here.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. It's uh I it was so funny. The like when I first got in the business, I I met Nick Garcia, who was at CIM. Yeah. In the retail world, you know, he's he's over at Heinz now and he's actually helping with a lot of the retail here. It's partnered up with CP Group, but um, I posted something on LinkedIn about Centennial Yards, and it was just a rumor at the time, and like everybody's like, that five billion dollar project, is that ever gonna happen? You know, 30 something people have tried to redevelop the gulch over decades. And um so I posted something and I know Nick, Nick reached out and was like, he sent me this private message like, hey, uh that's wrong. Like you didn't it was actually this much retail space or this many hotel rooms or um just kind of a thing. I was like, oh well, you're like you actually like work for them. Yeah, do we get coffee sometime? Like, and can I like learn more? So we ended up we got coffee um at the Starbucks at 100 Peachtree. And uh he brought his iPad and had all these like, you know, the confidential written all over it. Show me like what the plans were, and I was like, oh man, this is this is coming. It's a game changer. Yeah, yeah. And I just I remember sharing with people, I was like, Down, I really think downtown's coming. Like there's a a new energy that's happening. And like it's it's finally here. I mean you you just pulled up to the parking deck. You see like they've they've gone vertical and um it's it's real.

SPEAKER_00

So it's it's the appropriate marriage and the right marriage, I think, of of of sport and and that product coming together and and the and the the impact of the sports and this and and everything else. But but but the sports part, yeah. Having that come together is is huge.

SPEAKER_03

The championships, we have college, we have uh conventions, concerts, like the C's. The C's. That's uh yeah, that's what downtown does really well.

SPEAKER_00

The SEC uh Martistop, they just named it, right? Sports Entertainment and Convention.

SPEAKER_03

They've finally changed. Yeah. Um well give me I I want to ask about your watch. I'm uh I'm a admirer of watches. It looks like you got a like a classic date just here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um actually it was a wedding gift uh from for my wife. So just uh something that um came about. So got it.

SPEAKER_03

Are you do you collect or are you just as it's just the one and only it's a good looking? Um anything else I I can ask you about? Like what what else does Eden's have coming up?

SPEAKER_00

Man, we um we've got a a another large project in Charleston right now, West Ashley. Okay. Um we are under construction on about a$350 million project there. Um moving a moving a grocery store, uh 300 or so apartments with wood field development, and about 95 townhomes with material capital partners. Um that'll be about 250,000 square feet of retail at the end of the day around a central green space. So very, very 35-acre site, so kind of different scale than than Lula, but um that's under construction. Our our first phase will open probably early next summer, summer twenty-seven. Um but we've got a great team there and a lot of great retail momentum. I don't know how how well you know uh Charleston, but West Ashley is a huge growth corridor. Um probably the I think it's the largest uh block of of the city now uh there in West Ashley. So um great mayor that's that's a developer uh and and we've formed a great partnership with them also on a on a TIFF deal there um to rethink a very critical site for the city and for that neighborhood and community. So very excited there as well. I mean, this is just a a huge lift, but um can be a very, very impactful um project for for that community. So um yeah, those are those those two are keeping me pretty busy and keeping the team pretty busy. Um we we we spread between Charleston and here. We've got we've got foot boots on the ground in both places, but um yeah, a lot of a lot of work going on in the Sun Belt. Um, but we're doing stuff across the country. We've been a bit a big acquirer in the last few years, acquiring eight or nine hundred million dollars worth of existing product. Um and I think our development pipeline is about 900 million right now across the portfolio as well. About 25 different projects, of different scales and sizes, but um pretty robust, uh robust development pipeline too.

SPEAKER_03

So have you all poked around down in Savannah at all?

SPEAKER_00

We've been in and out of Savannah for years. One of the first projects I worked on with uh was was a was a fresh market there on Abercorn. Um we did some stuff in Pooler uh over the years, but um hadn't been back down there in a bit, but there's a lot happening down there too. A lot of growth in that market.

SPEAKER_03

Lots. Yeah. Um well good. Well, Herbert, this has been awesome, Matt. Yeah, man. Really very excited about this project. I maybe we can come out there and do a a little segment like we did with South Downtown.

SPEAKER_00

Doing here. A lot of great stuff happened in our city, and you guys are putting a good spotlight on it.

SPEAKER_03

Good deal. Well, thanks, man. Thank you. Yeah. All right, y'all. Well ahead. Thanks for tuning in. You can you know check out other episodes that we have. Um Herbert and his team are are going to be making something amazing happen on the east side. Uh we are we're kicking off season two. We have 10 videos that are coming out um between now and August and uh a really great lineup. So um obviously, if you need commercial space or uh if you want to know more about the office market, please reach out to me or my team. And uh that's it. Thanks.