Tower Place 200 sold for $32 million

By Gertha Coffee

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Another local office tower has fallen to hard times. Tower Place 200 in Buckhead, which avoided the auction block in October after the owner and lender agreed to put it into receivership, has been foreclosed on and sold for $32 million, or $123 per square foot, according to Databank  Atlanta, a real estate research firm.

Enlarge photo

LOUIE FAVORITE, AJC 000410-ATLANTA, GA. - Tower Place 200 (foreground) with the original Tower Place building behind it today, 4/10/00, in Buckhead. (LOUIE FAVORITE/ AJC STAFF)

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The buyer was CW Capital, special servicer for the lender.

The building also is losing a major tenant.

The former owner of the 259,888-square-foot highrise, Chicago-based Transwestern Investment Co., purchased the Class A office building from Ohio Police and Fire in 2006 for $58 million, or $223 per square foot, according to Databank. The original loan was for $50.5 million, according to Databank.

The 14-story building, located at 3348 Peachtree Road, was built in 1999 and is one of four buildings in the Tower Place complex.

The tenant on the ninth floor of Tower Place 200, Houston-based Transwestern Commercial Services, said its Atlanta regional office will leave the building early next year. The commercial real estate company will move to Tower Place 100 in February into a more efficient space, said Bruce Ford, Transwestern's senior executive in Atlanta.

Transwestern Commercial Services is no longer responsible for managing and leasing Tower Place 200, Ford said. When the property went into receivership, PM Realty Group became its leasing and management agent, he said.

Tower Place 200 is 65 percent occupied, said Tony Wilbert, PM Realty Group spokesman in Atlanta.

With the foreclosure done, the new owners and PM Realty can concentrate on a 2010 marketing plan for Tower Place 200, Wilbert said, "now that the building is no longer in limbo."