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Braves break mold, build park and mixed-use at same time

SunTrust Park (top) and the beginnings of The Battery Atlanta
Photo by: AMERICAN BUILDERS
The SunTrust Park construction site bears the familiar signs of stadium development: the brick exterior walls, the dark metal light towers, the precast seating bowl, all coming together to form a new ballpark for the Atlanta Braves in Cobb County.

It’s what’s going on next door that separates this project from other sports developments. Multiple cranes are erecting buildings of all shapes and sizes, including an Omni hotel; a 550-unit apartment complex; One Ballpark Center, the name of Comcast’s new Southeast office building; and the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre, a new Live Nation concert venue. Those four pieces, supplemented by 325,000 square feet of retail shops, bars and restaurants, anchor The Battery Atlanta, the $550 million mixed-use project tied to SunTrust Park.

The Braves are now firmly entrenched as real estate developers. The team owns 85 percent of the overall development with retail specialist Fuqua Development, office developer Pope & Land Enterprises and Pollack Shores Real Estate as minority partners.

For the MLB team, owned by Liberty Media, which also owns a piece of Live Nation, it’s a major accomplishment. Outside of Atlanta, the Chicago Cubs are one of the few MLB teams to own a controlling interest in development surrounding their facilities.

Mixed-use development is trending in the sports industry as teams strive to generate year-round activity and revenue outside the four walls of their building. Many of the same factors that affect construction of sports facilities can stall commercial development — economic downturns, cost overruns, political opposition blocking the permitting process — and it typically can take years for retail, office and residential space to take root apart from arenas and stadiums. By comparison, in the Braves’ project, the ballpark and The Battery are coming out of the ground at the same time.

“If they get this thing done the way they’re getting it done, they will definitely set the standard.”

EARL SANTEE
Populous founder and senior principal

Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
Come Opening Day 2017, a large chunk of the 1.2 million square feet of development will open its doors at the same time as SunTrust Park, including the Roxy, 10 bars and restaurants, and a half-dozen retailers. About 100 apartments will be completed and “presumably occupied,” said Derek Schiller, the Braves’ president of business operations who is also principally involved in the development.

Comcast’s nine-story building will be delivered to the company by the first quarter of 2017 and Comcast should be ready for occupancy later in the year after it furnishes the interior portion. The 250-room Omni won’t open until the fourth quarter of 2017, Schiller said.

The Braves’ project is a first in baseball, according to Populous founder and senior principal Earl Santee. He speaks from experience, having played a key role designing 20 MLB stadiums before Populous won the job to plan SunTrust Park.

“If they get this thing done the way they’re getting it done, they will definitely set the standard for how other people look at ballparks across America with the development being built concurrently, because no one’s ever done that,” Santee said during a ballpark media tour in early May.

A view from home plate toward center field at SunTrust Park, which will open in 2017.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
Since then, The Battery Atlanta has expanded with the addition of eight restaurant, retail and entertainment components next to the ballpark. The newest elements include a customized venue developed by The Cordish Cos. under its Live! banner, featuring a two-level sports bar, a PBR Bar & Grill branded for the Professional Bull Riders and a chef-driven restaurant concept to be announced later.

Cordish is a familiar name in mixed-use tied to sports facilities. In MLB alone, the Baltimore developer runs most of Ballpark Village, across the street from Busch Stadium in St. Louis. In north Texas, Cordish is in the early stages of building Texas Live! next to Globe Life Park, the Texas Rangers’ stadium in Arlington.

BRAVES’ NEW WORLD

Tenants who have signed leases for space at The Battery Atlanta, in addition to an apartment complex, an Omni Hotel and Comcast’s office building:

BARS AND RESTAURANTS
Antico Pizza
Chef-driven concept, TBA*
CRU Food and Wine Bar
El Felix
Goldbergs Bagel Company & Deli
PBR Bar & Grill*
Sports and social club, TBA*
Steakhouse concept, name TBA, by chef Linton Hopkins
Tomahawk Taproom, featuring Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q
Wahlburgers

RETAIL
DressUp
Harley-Davidson
Mountain High Outfitters
Sugarboo Designs

ENTERTAINMENT
Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre
Kings Bowl

* Part of Live!, Cordish Co.’s dining/entertainment destination
Source: Atlanta Braves

In Atlanta, though, the Braves, as majority partner, are “driving the bus” on The Battery Atlanta, Schiller said.

“I’ve been amazed by many different projects, a great example being St. Louis,” Schiller said. “I think they’ve done a wonderful job with Ballpark Village, but Cordish is the majority partner in that deal. The first phase in St. Louis was 120,000 square feet. Our first phase is 1.2 million square feet, and we’re doing ours in less than three years. We’ve had favorable economic conditions. There are a lot of things working for us: the part of town, the expediting of permits. The working relationship we have with everybody involved is phenomenal.”

The Battery Atlanta — and the increased tax revenue that the mixed-use development is expected to generate for Cobb County — is a big part of pushing the process along.

“We have the benefit of bundling a huge economic engine in addition to our ballpark … so we are all motivated to keep work moving as fast as possible,” Schiller said.

How were the Braves able to pull it off? First of all, the team’s ownership group had the financial resources, plus the willingness to commit to a mixed-use project of this magnitude, said David Demarest, international director for developer Jones Lang LaSalle.

The Braves hired Jones Lang LaSalle as their owner’s representative and financial consultant for both the ballpark and The Battery Atlanta. The company worked with the Braves to negotiate every real estate transaction for the mixed-use development, Demarest said.

To determine the project’s validity, Jones Lang LaSalle completed a feasibility study pinpointing a vacant piece of property in Cobb County, which helped move things forward in a portion of Greater Atlanta in need of further development, Demarest said.

The new ballpark will be smaller and more compact than the Braves’ current home, Turner Field.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
The study determined the mix of office, retail and entertainment structures to build as part of The Battery. It also defined the companies that potentially could lease the space and those who could become their tenants, as well as the critical numbers tied to the Braves’ return on investment.

“It became an operating manual for development of the site and told us the demand for all product types,” Demarest said. “In some cases, we went conservative, and in others, we were aggressive. Were it not for the market viability of the site, it wouldn’t have worked.”

The site itself is attached to an area in Cobb County with 25 million square feet of existing office space. At the same time, though, it was a region underserved by retail and multifamily residences, the study showed.

As a result of the study’s findings, and with the county’s support of the project, the Braves and their mixed-use partners gained the confidence and were prepared to move forward with the development.

The Battery Atlanta mixed-use development, adjacent to the park, adds retail and multi-family housing to an area already rich with office space.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
“We were on top of it and we’ve been able to keep the trains running on time, so to speak,” Demarest said. “The Braves will be moving in their new office space in December, and we’ll be ready for Opening Day.”

For Jones Lang LaSalle, the same company that managed the $1 billion transformation of Madison Square Garden a few years ago, the Braves’ ballpark and mixed-use project have led to discussions with other teams planning their own developments.

Demarest declined to identify those teams after signing confidentiality agreements, but they span multiple sports. As a whole, teams are tired of watching nearby businesses profit from their facilities without getting a piece of that revenue, he said.

“We believe this is the model moving forward, but one important consideration is the mixed-use needs to stand on its own,” Demarest said. “For the rest of the year, there needs to be some viability or else it doesn’t survive. [The Roxy, for example] should bring another 40 to 50 nights a year of [concert] activity, which increases the total number of events from 81 [games] to 120. The more you program that facility, the better off you’re going to be.”

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