Atlanta's hospitality and tourism industry generates $15 billion annually, the city reports. A revitalized Underground Atlanta will complement several new downtown attractions, including the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the College Football Hall of Fame and the new Mercedes-­Benz Stadium which will open later this year.

“The double-decker nature of Alabama and Pryor Street makes Underground unique,” Williams says. “Plus, it is made up of about 40 individual parcels each with their own title history. There were no good surveys. Part of the property consists of air rights above rapid rail lines and train tracks. There were public streets and abandoned alleys criss-crossing the property. The parking decks were owned as tenancies-in-common between the City and the County. In short, there were a lot of features that you don't normally encounter in a single real estate deal. And that was just the beginning point; the negotiations with the city only made things more complicated.”

What sets Atlanta's multifamily market apart at this stage in the cycle? Get one perspective here.

ATLANTA—Underground Atlanta just sold for $34.6 million. WRS, a real estate investment company based in Charleston, SC, plans to redevelop the 12-acre site into a live-work shop community with retail, hospitality, entertainment and residential space. The sale will result in $8 million annual cost savings for the City of Atlanta.

“There were a lot of twists and turns,” Andy Williams, who led the Morris, Manning & Martin legal team for the acquirer, WRS, tells GlobeSt.com. “The challenges included the historic nature of the property, including the history of its ownership. It's honeycombed by rights of way and interests owned by third parties. Because of its configuration, there were a lot of challenges to a real estate lawyer you wouldn't typically see in an individual deal—or even dozens of deals—that had to be addressed in this deal.”

Any multifamily development at Underground Atlanta will include 10 or 15% units at 60 or 80% AMI. WRS has developed over 30 anchored shopping centers covering 7 million square feet of retail space and has also aided in the development of more than 100 additional retail projects spanning more than 10 million square feet of retail space. The Horizon District in South Carolina, an urban research district that will contain over 2.5 million square feet of mixed-used space with street-level retail, restaurant and office space, and workforce housing, as well as retail-anchored projects for nationally known corporations including Belk, Staples, Kohl's, and Dick's Sporting Goods, are in the company's portfolio.

“Working with the city involved issues which were different than you might see with a private third party,” Williams says. “You always had to be aware of the political process and the place Underground Atlanta has in the local psyche and the history of Atlanta.”

Atlanta's hospitality and tourism industry generates $15 billion annually, the city reports. A revitalized Underground Atlanta will complement several new downtown attractions, including the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the College Football Hall of Fame and the new Mercedes-­Benz Stadium which will open later this year.

“The double-decker nature of Alabama and Pryor Street makes Underground unique,” Williams says. “Plus, it is made up of about 40 individual parcels each with their own title history. There were no good surveys. Part of the property consists of air rights above rapid rail lines and train tracks. There were public streets and abandoned alleys criss-crossing the property. The parking decks were owned as tenancies-in-common between the City and the County. In short, there were a lot of features that you don't normally encounter in a single real estate deal. And that was just the beginning point; the negotiations with the city only made things more complicated.”

What sets Atlanta's multifamily market apart at this stage in the cycle? Get one perspective here.