Westmount Realty Capital made another recent acquisition in the Atlanta market with the purchase of a 264,029-square-foot infill industrial portfolio in Norcross, 20 miles northeast of Atlanta’s busy central business district. The asset, which includes 12 flex/light industrial buildings, is located in Gwinnett County, an area where Westmount previously owned Gwinnett Commons, a 1.2-million-square-foot master-planned business park, and later sold in August 2020 as part of a joint venture.

The acquisition consists of Norcross 85, a three-building, 86,470 square-foot portfolio that is fully leased with 15 tenants, Peachtree Corners, an eight-building, grade-level flex portfolio that is 90% leased with more than 40 tenants and one free-standing building in the nearby submarket of Stone Mountain/Tucker. The asset has easy access to Interstate 85, Interstate 285 and the Norfolk Southern Railway. Nearby Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is also the busiest passenger airport in the U.S.

“Atlanta is the distribution hub of the southeast because of its proximity to the booming Port of Savannah, highly diversified economy and comparatively low cost of living and doing business,” said Nick Sands, Westmount’s senior director – industrial acquisitions. “Historically, Norcross has been one of the most desirable and land-constrained industrial submarkets in the country, so we’re thrilled to be back in the region. The region’s growth provides a great outlook for real estate investment, and we plan on staying active in the market.”

Westmount was drawn to the asset’s industrial quality and its location to the metro’s core. According to CoStar, roughly 18% of the submarket’s stock consists of flex properties, which is about double the metro average. The flex-heavy inventory caters to technology, telecom and light manufacturing firms.

“Since Atlanta is home to numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Delta and Coca-Cola, this  investment represents another value-add opportunity for us,” said Cliff Booth, Westmount’s founder and chairman. “Twenty-one percent of the portfolio is currently on modified gross leases, providing us with an opportunity to create more value by converting gross tenants to net leases. Solid occupancy gains in northeast Atlanta in early 2021 also resulted in the submarket’s overall vacancy rate dipping below 6% for the first time in the submarket’s history. Most of the submarket’s absorption took place in Gwinnett County and came from tenants occupying under 200,000 square feet.”

The Norcross Infill Industrial Portfolio adds to Westmount’s growing presence in the Atlanta market. Westmount recently acquired Ashwood, a Class A, 160-unit apartment community in Dunwoody, a northern suburb of Atlanta, that will be rebranded as Westmount Ashwood.