FOCUS Brands to lease entire MidCity Plaza for New Headquarters

Class A Building at I-285 and GA 400 completely restored by MidCity Real Estate Partners; long-term lease just secured for FOCUS Brands new Corporate Headquarters Atlanta – March 16, 2015 – FOCUS Brands, Inc. today announced their multi-year lease of the entire MidCity Plaza building, an extensively renovated, Class A property located at I-285 and GA 400. Formerly occupied by Crawford & Company, FOCUS Brands will relocate their corporate headquarters to the new location later this year. FOCUS Brands is the parent company of Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among other top concepts, and will exclusively occupy the 63,000-square-foot building. The property was purchased by MidCity Real Estate Partners in mid-2013 and was completely converted to Class A standards over the course of a nearly two-year-long process. The office building is part of a mixed-use development including five restaurants and Class A apartments. Since purchasing the vacant office building at 5620 Glenridge Dr., MidCity Real Estate Partners thoroughly overhauled the property, including converting the entire lower level of the office building with approximately 50 reserved, covered, gated parking spaces with direct access via elevators to the upper floors. Exterior renovations to the base building included new windows and a new entrance. The interiors are entirely new including new bathrooms, lobbies and HVAC systems. Following the conversion, the building now has a high parking ratio exceeding five parking places per 1,000 square feet of space, with more than 200 of the parking spaces as covered parking. Kirk Demetrops, president of MidCity, cited MidCity Plaza’s mixed-use nature, location, and high parking ratio as particularly compelling attractions. The mixed-use development includes the Windsor at Glenridge, 168 luxury apartments developed by Wood Partners as well as restaurants Blue Moon Pizza, Taziki’s, Firehouse Subs, Qdoba and Sushi Nami.  “We positioned MidCity Plaza to meet the priorities of today’s office users, this includes the ability for open and efficient floor plans, amenities on site, access, visibility and building signage” said Demetrops. “FOCUS Brands is an ideal fit for this building. We are very excited they have chosen MidCity Plaza for their headquarters.” “The timing of this building renovation was perfect for us,” said FOCUS Brands CEO Steve DeSutter. “Our business is growing at a rapid pace, and we needed an office environment that could keep up with our ambitious goals and our collaborative operating style,” said DeSutter. “The location, amenities and potential offered by MidCity Plaza give us exactly what we need to take our company to the next level, and I’m thrilled to be working with the MidCity Team.”   The MidCity Plaza Team MidCity Real Estate Partners retained Glenn Kolker and Preston Menning of Cassidy Turley to lease the building and Childress Klein Properties to manage the project. Chris Wagner with JLL represented FOCUS. The Cooper Carry-designed building delivered in 1978 and served as Crawford & Company’s headquarters until they vacated in 2007. The surface parking spaces that served the building originally were redeveloped into the retail space and apartments adjacent to the building/  MidCity Real Estate Partners hire Gene Montezinos with PFVS as the base building architect. Prior to joining PFVS, Montezinos was with TVS, where he designed many Class A office buildings in Atlanta, including the Concourse, the UPS World Headquarters and Glenridge Highlands.   MidCity Real Estate Partners – High Profile Projects MidCity Plaza is MidCity Real Estate Partners’ second significant Central Perimeter office redevelopment. In October 2012, MidCity acquired five buildings on 8.5 acres from Cousins Properties Inc. at GA 400 and Hammond Drive. That project, known as Hammond 400, includes a new building developed for the Thomas Eye Group. More recently, in early 2015, the city of Alpharetta...