Buckhead’s highest sale
One of Buckhead’s trophy homes recently sold for $10.5 million, the highest recorded residential sale price in Atlanta real estate history.
The 4-acre estate at 3650 Tuxedo Road, built in 1997, was originally listed at $16.9 million, said Betsy Akers, the agent for the buyer, whose name was not revealed.
The house has more than 13,000 square feet of livable space. It has seven bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and two half-bathrooms, and three fireplaces. The sellers are Jerome and Bridget Dobson, according to Fulton County tax records.
The total appraised value of the property rose from $1.6 million in 2000 to $6.2 million in 2005 to $11.6 million last year.
Steve Palm, the president of Marietta real estate research firm SmartNumbers, said he could not find a higher sale price for a single-family home among his various databases.
But he said the sale does not mean that the house, known as Descante, is the most expensive in Atlanta. He said estate homes are often custom-built on empty land. In those cases, he said, “there is no sale on the house, just the land. You never know how much they paid for the actual house.”
Three neighbors of Descante also are for sale and have seen their prices cut, Akers said.
The Tuxedo Road home of Arthur Blank, who owns the Falcons, is priced at $8.9 million after an 18 percent cut. Across the road, Windcrofte, sometimes called the Woodruff mansion, is listed at $10.9 million after a $3 million trim. And the new price for Rossdhu, the 91-year-old mansion at 2900 Andrews Drive, is $11.75 million, reduced 19 percent.
Nordstrom Rack coming to Buckhead Station
Seattle-based department store Nordstrom Inc. plans to open a Nordstrom Rack, the company’s off-price division, in Buckhead Station on the Lenox Road loop in 2010, just blocks from the Nordstrom department store at Phipps Plaza.
After opening the 38,000-square-foot store upstairs at Buckhead Station, Nordstrom does not plan any further expansions in Georgia, although the company is planning 28 new stores in the next three years nationally. Sixteen of those will be Nordstrom Rack stores, which sell handbags, shoes and clothing at lower prices than the department stores.
Other tenants at Buckhead Station, which is owned by Equity One, a Miami-based real estate investment trust, include T.J. Maxx, DSW, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ultra3 and Toys “R” Us.
Health underwriters elect officers
Jodie E. Braner of Pritchard & Jerden Inc. in Buckhead was installed as president of the Atlanta Association of Health Underwriters (AAHU), a chapter of the Georgia Association of Health Underwriters and National Association of Health Underwriters, at the group’s monthly membership meeting June 12 at the Cobb Galleria.
The AAHU is an organization of health insurance agents, brokers and other professionals.
The other officers installed for the 2009-10 executive board of the AAHU are Al Hombroek, president-elect; Brent Simmons, vice president; Kevin Smith, immediate past president; and Bob DePriest, secretary/treasurer.
Wireless footprint expands in Atlanta
Clearwire Communications officially launched its Clear 4G WiMax service in Atlanta on June 16, boasting that the service covers 1,200 square miles and makes it the biggest wireless Internet hot spot in America. Unofficially, the system has operated since early May.
There apparently are some holes in the footprint, which covers everything inside of I-285 and more. Service is not available in some parts of the northside around Dunwoody and Sandy Springs and around Decatur in central DeKalb County.
Unlike wireless Internet, which is offered largely free at almost 900 sites in metro Atlanta, Clear has an entry price considered fairly high by some. To hook up a laptop requires a special USB modem, which costs $59.99, and there is a $35 activation fee. Service subscription rates start at $10 a day and go to $50 a month.
The system does move wi-fi service a step closer to making high-definition, high-speed Internet programming as clear on remote laptops as Internet and cable TV reception at home.
Coro Realty buys Park Place on Perimeter
Buckhead-based Coro Realty Advisors, which owns strip shopping centers in Sandy Springs and Buckhead, has purchased Park Place, the 82,097-square-foot Perimeter Center specialty retail shopping center at 4505 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, for $28.5 million.
Coro purchased the property from Bell Partners of Greenville, S.C., on behalf of an offshore investor for $347 per square foot, reportedly through assumption of existing financing of $18.8 million from lender Principal Commercial Funding, an operating company of Principal Financial Group.
Park Place, which is across Ashford-Dunwoody from Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody, is 90 percent occupied by national and regional specialty tenants, including Talbot’s, Jared Galleria of Jewelry, Alon’s Bakery, H. Stockton and McKendrick’s Steakhouse.
In addition to Coro’s shopping center interests in Sandy Springs and Buckhead, the company recently completed the O5 Buckhead luxury high-rise apartment building and Tremont mixed-use development in Buckhead.