ATLANTA — Real estate development firm Jamestown has secured a $180 million construction loan for the Ponce City Market adaptive reuse project, located two miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. PNC Bank provided the loan in partnership with SunTrust and JP Morgan. Ponce City Market is the largest construction loan in post-recession Atlanta, according to Jamestown. Jeff Ackemann and Jonathan Rice with CBRE Debt
and Structured Finance Group in Atlanta arranged the loan.
Up until now, Jamestown has used its own equity to fund 100 percent of the 1.1 million-square-foot restoration of a former historic Sears, Roebuck & Co. building.
The 10-story, 16-acre Ponce City Market is slated for a rolling opening this fall. The ballyhooed project will consist of 330,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 517,000 square feet of Class A loft office space, and 259 residential units. Signed office tenants of the market include athenahealth, Cardlytics, MailChimp, as well as retailer Binders and The Suzuki School, a preparatory preschool.
Restaurants committed to the project include Dub’s Fish Camp and H&F Burger, both led by James Beard Award-winning chefs.
Ponce City Market is the largest brick building in the Southeast. Its previous iteration was as Atlanta’s City Hall East. The city sold the building to Jamestown in 2011 for $27 million.
The project will also feature a new pedestrian bridge that will link the interior courtyard and public market directly to Atlanta’s BeltLine walking and cycling trails.
Ponce City Market is one of several areas in Atlanta that has been approved as a Georgia Opportunity Zone. Companies that lease at Ponce City Market are eligible for an income tax credit of $3,500 for each new job they create over two employees. The opportunity is valid for up to five years, and the credits will offset some or all of a business’s income tax liability, with any excess applied to the state payroll withholding tax.
Jamestown was founded in 1983 and has headquarters in Atlanta and Cologne, Germany. The company also has offices in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Washington. Jamestown has owned and sold more than $9 billion of assets.
— Scott Reid