Nonprofit group buys apartments

The Atlanta Development Authority has sold the Vineyards Apartments to a private nonprofit organization that will help homeless families.

The property, in the Vine City neighborhood near the Georgia Dome, was sold for $755,000 to Community Concerns, part of the Chapel of Christian Love Missionary Baptist Church.

The ADA awarded Community Concerns a $1.4 million grant from its Homeless Opportunity Fund to help buy the apartments and make $1 million in upgrades. The plan is to provide 32 apartment homes for intact homeless families.

"This housing will help address a growing need to reunite homeless families so that the father isn't in one shelter and the mom and children are in another shelter, " said Debi Starnes, Mayor Shirley Franklin's adviser on homeless issues.

The ADA acquired the property when it foreclosed on the previous owner in July 2007.

IN THE WORKS

The first occupant of Vinings Main, a 16-acre mixed-use project on Paces Ferry Road just inside I-285, is scheduled to move in next week.

The Larimer-Shannon Group, which represents manufacturers of commercial exterior construction products, bought 3,500 square feet of space at the top of the four-story building.

Vinings Main will have townhouses, a building with office and retail, and another building with condominiums and retail.

Paul Albrecht, who operates Paul's restaurant in Peachtree Hills, plans to open Social Vinings in August. It will have a sushi bar and a wine bar.

Wood Partners and Parkside Partners developed the office building, and Wood Partners and the Columns Group developed the condo building.

TODAY'S BIG NUMBER

$62

In millions, what Miles Properties of Atlanta paid for four apartment complexes in Norcross. The seller was TGM Associates of New York.

Source: Databank

TRANSACTIONS

Sembler Co. of Florida and Steven D. Bell & Co. of North Carolina purchased 1.46 acres on Peachtree Road for $7.75 million, Databank says.

The sale is part of Town Brookhaven, Sembler's 54-acre mixed-use project near Oglethorpe University, the first part of which is scheduled to open next year. The price works out to more than $5.3 million per acre.

Town Brookhaven's plans call for 600,000 square feet of retail space and more than 1,500 residences.

> The Plantation Pointe shopping center, at 2350 Spring Road in Smyrna, has sold for $10.5 million, Databank says.

The buyer was Tina Dang. The seller was Min Sik Kang of Lanham, Md.

MERGERS

CUH2A, an international architectural firm that's designed a half-dozen science buildings in Georgia, is merging with health care design firm HDR Architecture of Omaha, Neb.

CUH2A, based in Princeton, N.J., has designed lab facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Georgia State University's first University Science Park building, which is under construction; the University of Georgia Animal Health Research Center, which opened in 2006; and the Georgia Tech Molecular Science and Engineering Building, which also opened in 2006.

It will become a division of HDR when the merger is completed this month.

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