Wise tells GlobeSt.com, "I got a call one morning from a person I did not know in New York who said he was trying to find financing for an Atlanta property for his client in Germany." The client also owns several Southeast properties and controls Oakwood Commerce Partners, the caller told Wise. "The caller said his client was interested in selling the Atlanta property without going through a conventional brokerage company."

Wise says "the property was never formally on the market, but when we got wind of the opportunity, Jamestown immediately came to mind as the best qualified buyer."

Wise says he suspects his caller got his name from a quarterly office market report he has been publishing for the past 12 years to selected clients and potential investors.

The name of Wise's caller is Richard Ridloff, president and CEO of the Richardson Co., a New York-based real estate investment advisory company that acquires single-tenant, net-leased properties for its own account and for a select group of clients. Asked why the deal was done at this time, Ridloff tells GlobeSt.com, "All I can tell you is that my client felt the time was right to do it now." Ridloff says that his client has other Southeast properties that "may or may not be" on the market in the near future.

Richard Ridloff says Dan Ridloff, a broker with Cooper-Horowitz in New York, assisted Jamestown in providing $80 million in financing for the acquisition. Cooper-Horowitz has assisted New York developer Donald Trump on several deals, Richard Ridloff tells GlobeSt.com.

Wise's partner Kokernak tells GlobeSt.com "the acquisition fit Jamestown's parameters perfectly" because "IBM is a high-quality tenant on a triple-net lease with 11 years remaining on the primary lease term."

An important factor that speeded the closing of the deal was Jamestown's knowledge of the property and its location. "Due diligence was not an issue as Jamestown knew the property well, having attempted to acquire it three years ago when it was being sold by Rreef," Kokernak says.

The two buildings serve as IBM's headquarters for its Southeast marketing and information systems divisions. The buildings are joined with various walkways and a glass-roofed skywalk. The 907-space garage was built in 1998 and 1999. A surface lot provides an additional 1,785 spaces.

For Jamestown, the IBM office campus acquisition was another check mark on an acquisition chalk board that includes the two-million-sf office building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York and the 1.1-million-sf office building at One Federal Street in Boston.