Krog Street developer dangles shopping center for sale to pursue more projects

From the $122 million State Judicial Complex rising near downtown to townhouses targeting millennials at Kirkwood’s eastern fringes, Memorial Drive has seen seismic change in the form of new development in recent years.

Among the more unsung Memorial Drive ventures lately has been Paces Properties’s overhaul of a tired, suburban-style shopping center near the southern junction of Edgewood and Kirkwood.

Best known for developing (and then selling) Krog Street Market, Paces acquired what’s become the 105,000-square-foot The Atlantic Shopping Center in 2016, revitalized the property, and inked an anchor tenant in Floor & Decor.

Now, Paces intends to offload the 1960s property in order to “redeploy proceeds from the sale into other development projects in the immediate area, reflecting the seller’s commitment to the submarket,” said Fred Victor, Transwestern Atlanta Investment Services Group vice president, in a Tuesday announcement.

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Elsewhere on Memorial Drive, Paces is expected to debut the Atlanta Dairies redevelopment this spring, while the company’s Larkin on Memorial is abuzz with new eateries and retail in Grant Park.

The 10-acre Atlantic redevelopment is 80 percent leased now, thanks to a 15-year commitment by Floor & Decor.

Another 21,000 square feet remains unclaimed, and zoning allows for a 5,000-square-foot building to be constructed amid the property’s vast parking lot.

The infill location “is surrounded by Atlanta’s most rapidly transforming and densely populated neighborhoods of Kirkwood, Decatur, and East Atlanta,” notes the release. Victor added that initial interest from developers in the shopping center “validates Memorial Drive as one of Atlanta’s hottest retail corridors.”

Former tenants have included Family Dollar, Club ESSO, and VEO Thrift, a thrift shop supporting local veterans.

An asking price for the shopping center wasn’t disclosed.