By Skip Petters, director of industrial leasing & sales, Carter
Over the past 30 months 24 industrial transactions, ranging from 200,704 SF to 969,150 square feet, have been completed across metro Atlanta. And relationships played key roles in each.
Once a large corporate user has decided to locate regional industrial hubs in Atlanta, it will begin its search by reviewing all available buildings. It will tour some personally and take flyers on others.
Corporate users will whittle down the list because of particular access they desire. The I-75 South corridor is attractive to clients moving goods to Florida and the Georgia Ports in Savannah. I-75 North works well for distribution to the Midwest. I-85 South is ideal for Kia-related business and the Gulf Coast, and the I-85 North corridor works well for distribution to the East Coast.
Prospects also take into account labor (cost and availability), state and county incentives and local real estate taxes.
Civic and government relationships are critical to capitalize on the incentives that can make the difference in attracting large regional corporate distribution and manufacturing hubs. To this end, Carter has developed relationships at the state and local levels to help better serve our client’s interests. Carter’s Executive Team has personal relationships at the state level with Ga. Gov. Sonny Purdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and the local level with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and with the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Georgia Power.
Relationships with developers also are vital because they dominate the big-box market. They include IDI, ProLogis, Panattoni, First Industrial, Majestic Realty, Raco, McDonald Development and MD Hodges. Large industrial buildings of 500,000 square feet and bigger started popping up years ago and were predominately build-to-suit construction.
This concept changed seven or eight years ago when developers saw the trend of large national firms consolidating their distribution centers from multiple locations to regional hubs. At this time, industrial developers began building 500,000 square-foot-plus bulk distribution facilities on a speculative basis.
The users in the large transactions mentioned above were represented by industrial brokers. This demonstrates the importance of knowing each brokerage house and their respective agents personally.
Recent Comments