Harrison Street Partners With Portman Holdings on Atlanta Mixed-Use

Coda at Tech Square. Image courtesy of Harrison Street

Chicago-based Harrison Street has formed a joint venture with Portman Holdings to invest in the Coda building at Technology Square, a Class T research and innovation center adjacent to the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Details about the transaction, including the price Harrison Street paid for its stake in the 21-story, mixed-use building, were not disclosed.

Coda is not Harrison Street’s only recent technology-related real estate investment. In May, Harrison Street formed a joint venture with Lincoln Property Co. to build a 190-acre data center and industrial campus near Columbus, Ohio, which could attract a wide range of users and industries including technology, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and e-commerce. The Silicon Heartland Innovation Park in New Albany, Ohio, is adjacent to the $20 billion, 1,000-acre property where Intel is building multiple semi-conductor chips plants.

Atlanta’s first Class T building

Portman, an Atlanta-based national real estate investment, development and management firm, broke ground on Coda in 2016, financing the construction with a $160.1 million loan from JPMorgan Chase, according to CommercialEdge data. In 2019 the developer delivered the building that became one of the only sites in Tech Square where public university researchers and private industry employees work together.

Ambrish Baisiwala, chairman & CEO of Portman Holdings, said in a prepared statement the firm pioneered the concept of a Class T building with Georgia Tech. Envisioned by Georgia Tech and developed by Portman to support and accelerate the university’s research and collaboration capabilities, Coda has led to the direct and indirect creation of more than 11,000 innovation-related jobs in Atlanta.

Located on roughly 2 acres at 756 W. Peachtree St. NW, the mixed-use tower features 645,000 square feet of office space, an 80,000-square-foot data center and 25,000 square feet of street-level retail, as well as collaborative spaces on each floor. The building is 98 percent leased, serving more than 700 Georgia Tech faculty, staff and researchers as well as leading technology companies including Cisco, AutoDesk and Keysight Technologies.

Portman developments

Portman’s development portfolio includes office buildings and research laboratories. While the firm has also completed projects in San Francisco, San Diego and Charlotte, N.C., the majority of its work came to life in Atlanta.

In a recent move, Portman partnered with PCCP LLC in March to build a 143,500-square-foot office building in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood that will have 136,600 square feet of boutique office space along with 6,900 square feet of ground-floor retail and two levels of parking. O4W Office is slated for completion in summer 2023.