Lactose Tolerant: Raulet Property Partners Keeps Milking Southern Dairies

Paul Raulet, Kari Marschark and Price Muir of Raulet Property Partners in front of the Southern Dairies building.

Raulet Property Partners could've panicked when 75 percent of the Southern Dairies building's tenants rolled over right in the middle of a recession. Instead, the Raulet team went to work and closed 59,000 square feet of renewals, expansions and new deals at the 80,300-square-foot loft office property at 621 North Ave. in Midtown.

Raulet acquired Southern Dairies in 1998 from Kraft, which used the facility to manufacture Breyers Ice Cream. In the midst of the dot-com boom, the brokerage/development firm renovated the property and leased it to full occupancy, managing to maintain a solid roster of tenants over the next decade. Ten years later, though, Southern Dairies' largest tenant entered bankruptcy, and a swath of other leases approached expiration.

In response, Raulet's Price Muir lead leasing efforts to renew and expand tenants like Cardlytics, which now leases 12,400 square feet, and Keller Williams, which leases 11,045 square feet, and sign new tenants Enertech, Reliant Technologies, Digital Valence and Apogee Logistics for a total of 21,200 square feet of new deals, with only modest reductions in rental rates, Muir said.

The trick, Paul Raulet said, is Real Estate 101 and offering a product - quality loft office space, in this case - that has limited competition. Tenants seeking loft office space generally desire a hip, edgy neighborhood but have few options for high-finish locations. Raulet focuses on in-town growth patterns and residential and retail trends to uncover redevelopment opportunities that ultimately meet those office tenants' demands.

"We have unique, well located properties, and our basis is typically very low," Raulet said. "We pride ourselves on keeping up with the flow of redevelopment and the vibe of where a neighborhood is going."

John McColl, Executive Vice President of Cousins Properties

Cousins Properties' John McColl has been named Executive Vice President, development, office leasing and asset management. In his new position, McColl will oversee all of Cousins' office leasing and asset management initiatives and continue his development-related responsibilities. McColl, son of legendary former Bank of America Chairman and CEO Hugh McColl , joined Cousins in 1996 and has steadily climbed the ladder, most recently serving as senior vice president. He played a key role in Terminus' development and the repositioning of 191 Peachtree downtown. He's also actively involved in local philanthropy including Habitat for Humanity and the Atlanta Police Foundation.

Other recent notable deals include:

• Colliers International-Atlanta Office and John Dixon & Associates have teamed up to form Colliers John Dixon-Commercial Auction Services. Dixon founded his firm 14 years ago, and the new partnership combines his firm's auction expertise involving both performing and non-performing assets with Colliers' global platform.
• Duke Realty has leased 195,000 square feet of industrial space to Maersk Distribution Services at Duke's 318 Grange Road building near the Port of Savannah. John Neely of Colliers Neely Dales represented Maersk, while Duke's Brian Sutton represented ownership.
• Ackerman Medical has sold Camp Creek Medical Center I and II to Healthcare Trust of America for $19.55 million. CB Richard Ellis' Justin Parsonnet and Lee Asher represented Ackerman Medical in the sale of the 80,562-square-foot southside medical office development adjacent to Camp Creek Marketplace.
• An affiliate of New York-based KTR Capital Partners has acquired Airport distribution Center III, a 406,989-square-foot cross-dock distribution center that is fully leased to UPS.

Left to right (front row):  Jennifer Koontz of Pope & Land and Sonia Winfield of Carter.  Left to right (back row):  Monica Davis (Partnership Atlanta), Andi May (CB Richard Ellis), Kari Downing (Jackson Oats Shaw), Nicole Janney (Jones Lang LaSalle) and Heather Gulesserian (Cushman & Wakefield)

The Rooster was happy to join the ladies of Pope & Land , Carter, Partners Atlanta,CB Richard Ellis, Jackson Oats Shaw,Jones Lang LaSalle and Cushman & Wakefield as they held a tremendous event benefiting the Dana G. Smith Foundation last Wednesday evening.

On the 28th floor of Sovereign in Buckhead, more than 100 guests gathered for the first (and surely not last) "Wine & Whiskey" event.  It was another huge success toward the local efforts for cancer research by Atlanta's CRE professionals.  Props from the Rooster!

In this group photo: 6 professional guides, 11 brokers and 6 Hines hosts getting ready to quail hunt at Burge Plantation.

Hines recently hosted a two-day Southern Sporting Classic for eleven lucky Atlanta brokers.  Professionally instructed skeet shooting,  quail hunting, bluegrass entertainment and a "game" supper in the plantation house at Burge Plantation made for a great brokerage getaway.

John Heagy, Senior Vice President, has been hosting broker events on behalf of the portfolio of Hines buildings, as well as third party owned buildings, for 10 years with great success.   "Quail hunting is a unique southern passtime.  A lot of the guys and gals we entertain at Burge have been shooting shotguns and quail hunting since they were children, but there is always an equal number of newcomers  that get hopelessly  hooked on the beauty of the sport - the bird dogs, the guides  and the camaraderie," he told the Rooster.  Sure sounds fun to us!