Rubenstein Partners Obtains $114M Refi for Atlanta Campus

Pennant Park. Image courtesy of Rubenstein Partners

Rubenstein Partners has received a $114 million loan to refinance its Pennant Park project in Atlanta, after spending four years to renovate the six-building property. 

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Nuveen Real Estate provided the four-year floating-rate loan, Tim Skender, vice president at Rubenstein, told Commercial Property Executive. Cushman & Wakefield’s Mike Ryan, Brian Linnihan, Richard Henry and Blake Cohen from the Equity, Debt and Structured Finance team helped secure the financing for Rubenstein.

Located at the intersection of Interstates 75 and 285 in Atlanta’s Northwest submarket, Pennant Park offers 760,000 square feet across its six buildings. Amenities include cafes, fitness centers, a tenant lounge, a conference center and a daycare. Skender told CPE that the property is currently 87 percent occupied, with tenants including thyssenkrupp Elevator Americas, ARCO Design/Build, Artera Services, Juneau Construction and Oversight Systems. According to Rubenstein, the company has signed more than 550,000 square feet in leases at Pennant Park since its acquisition in April 2016.

Following the acquisition, Rubenstein invested approximately $17 million into improvements at Pennant Park, with the goal of creating a walkable Class A urban office environment. Rubenstein’s capital improvement plan included creating a courtyard amenity called The Quad, improving walking and biking connections to the nearby amenities and renovating the lobbies, restrooms and building systems. All the renovations took approximately four years, Skender told CPE.

Rubenstein’s strategy also included selling the non-essential buildings of the campus and executing a parking lease with the Atlanta Braves for evening and weekend games, as the office was located near the team’s home ballpark.

Braving the COVID-19 pandemic

Despite the COVID-19 making its way through Atlanta, the city’s office market has remained very active. At the start of June, roughly 7.7 million square feet of office space was under construction and scheduled to deliver before the end of the year, according to CommercialEdge data.

Taylor Smith, senior vice president & regional director for Rubenstein’s Southeast division, said in prepared remarks that Rubenstein is expecting a fast recovery for Atlanta, which has been fundamentally strong throughout the pandemic. Even before COVID-19, Rubenstein was looking to expand its Atlanta footprint after spending $187 million to acquire a 1.1 million-square-foot office property in the city, along with its joint venture partner Monarch Alternative Capital in September 2019.