Jamestown gains suburban prowess, acquiring fellow mixed-use outfit

Jamestown LP will add to its roster high-profile properties from Midtown Atlanta to Midtown Manhattan with a deal that pushes the suburban side of its portfolio farther from the urban core.

The real estate investment and management firm has agreed to acquire the Atlanta office of Cincinnati-based North American Properties on undisclosed terms, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. 

The NAP operations in Atlanta will take on the Jamestown brand, with local Managing Partner Tim Perry taking the role of managing director and co-chief investment officer under the new owner.

Jamestown will get well beyond Atlanta’s city limits by adding NAP’s Avenue East Cobb development in Marietta, Forum Peachtree Corners and three other mixed-use suburban properties. Jamestown also will get Colony Square in Atlanta’s Midtown.

Jamestown developed Ponce City Market and owns several other big office and mixed-use projects in the city, including the Buckhead Village District and Westside Provisions District. It also counts One Times Square — home of the famous New Year’s Eve ball drop — and other major properties in markets ranging from Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco to the IDB building in Lisbon, Portugal. 

NAP will remain an investor in the Atlanta office properties and continue to operate other portfolios from its offices in Cincinnati, Dallas and Ft. Meyers and Melbourne, Florida. 

The deal began to take shape about a year ago, Jamestown CEO Matt Bronfman said, noting that the two firms have similar approaches to revitalizing tired mixed-used properties, with Jamestown concentrating mostly on urban markets and NAP focused primarily on suburbs.

“Combining together gives us scale. We’re complimentary to investors, tenants and market forces. There aren’t that many people that do what we do,” Bronfman said.

The combination was likely figured with today’s challenges of high interest rates and tough lending atmosphere in mind, Rick Porter, the director of Georgia Tech’s Master of Real Estate Development, told the outlet.

“Attracting equity and commercial debt remains challenging. To see a very large acquisition like this, with companies that have a very big appetite for capital, it makes sense,” Porter said. “You need a lot of skills to be able to go to investors and attract capital, because there are a lot of dynamics in the marketplace between cost or interest rates.”

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