Switch hitter: Atlanta Braves baseball team doubles as a real estate developer

The Major League Baseball franchise is preparing to develop two office buildings on a four-acre site next to its home field in Atlanta

Atlanta (Credit: Getty, Pixabay)
Atlanta (Credit: Getty, Pixabay)

Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves franchise is developing two office buildings near the baseball team’s home field at SunTrust Park.

The Cobb County Development Authority recently acted to help the Braves secure a loan to finance the office development.

A German conglomerate called Thyssenkrupp has leased two acres of the four-acre development site and will operate an office building there as a research-and-development facility.

The Braves will develop another office building on the other two acres. Thyssenkrupp will lease half of that building, and the Braves will develop the other half on a speculative basis, without securing one or more tenants first.

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The four-acre office development site is in a complex called the Battery, which surrounds the baseball team’s home field at SunTrust Park.

So when the chairman of the Atlanta Braves organization, Terry McGuirk, recently said he “couldn’t be more optimistic about the Braves,” he may have been referring to the entire enterprise, not just the team.

The organization chart of the Braves at MLB.com indicates that real estate development is a key component of the Major League Baseball franchise.

Listed just below the chairman and the president and chief executive officer is the president and chief executive of the organization’s real estate arm, Braves Development Company. [NBC Sports]Mike Seemuth