Cousins Enters Industrial Market

ATLANTA-Locally based Cousins Properties Inc., with a national portfolio of 14.1 million sf of general office and medical office space, 2.6 million sf of retail and 280 acres of prime undeveloped land, is entering the industrial market for the first time.The REIT and Atlanta-based Weeks Properties have formed Cousins/Weeks to develop and own local and national industrial assets. Forrest Robinson, a former Weeks Corp. executive and president of development at Miami-based Codina Group, is president of the new venture. Ray Weeks, former chairman and CEO of Weeks Corp., heads Weeks Properties.”Cousins has always held diversification as one of our core principles and the combination of our venture with Ray and the hiring of Forrest gives us a strong start in a new product type,” says Cousins vice chairman Dan DuPree.The new firm will focus initially on acquiring metro Atlanta properties before scouting for assets in other markets. “Even though Weeks Corp. operated in 10 cities, we had exceptional success in the metro Atlanta market throughout the 1990s,” Weeks says. “Our hope is to concentrate energy and resources on Atlanta and establish that same sort of dominating presence with Cousins/Weeks.”Weeks Corp. owned 30 million sf of industrial properties at the time of its 1999 merger with Duke Realty Corp. of Indianapolis. The firm went public in 1994.