Congratulations to our Sales Advisor John Horhn for winning the 2024 Excalibur Award!
The Excalibur Award exemplifies everything that a superstar agent in the commercial real estate business needs to be: creative, professional, ethical, and tenacious. Excalibur is awarded to a newer King Industrial agent who demonstrates initiative and innovative solutions to overcome all obstacles that lead to creating a winning situation for the client.
Below is John’s account of his consummated transaction:
I received a call on January 18, 2022 from a company finding a new office for a Tennessee-based industrial labor solutions company that currently had its office in downtown Atlanta. They had a difficult if not impossible ask, which was to find a downtown office that had free parking which was not obscenely expensive, but also not especially distant from the downtown area.
They needed an updated space that could accommodate their tech and sales floor. At the time there were very few buildings available which had those features without also being cost prohibitive. The company was looking for a 7-year lease which was really the only advantage I had as leverage. I had only one option that I instinctively thought of was Armour Drive, an area where old industrial product was being converted into Class A co-working and office space. Armour Drive was still at a heaving price point, $30 PSF with $9.50 in OPEX. However, I presented a table of options from Fairlie Street to Monroe Drive that were much cheaper than Armour which I thought they would spring for after a quick comparison. One location in particular caught their eye, and that was a location at the MET development site on Metropolitan Parkway. That location was at $24 NNN with $6.75 in OPEX for a 10,000 SF space.
Strangely they had a preference for a 3-5 year deal and were shying away from long-term contracts, which should have been my first warning, but they loved it. The COO set up a site visit for the Atlanta office and lease options, flew in and I took him around to check out the options. This was my first time working alone and first time working with a client that was based out-of-state. I was lucky in that the COO and his team were insanely easy to work with and appreciated the field of options so much that they were willing to sign an exclusive contract with me. However, that is where the problems started. The Met office that they liked needed to be white boxed as it was raw industrial shell, and after haggling with the listing broker for six weeks as they became more and more evasive, I eventually get the news that they do not want to invest in a premium client or their buildout. Armour Drive was our next available option, and somewhat of a relief.
Six months into our search, we were challenged by numerous code and buildout issues that required diplomacy and tact to negotiate with all the involved stakeholders to refine our plans appropriately. This was not the most inexpensive option, but it was the best way to ensure all parties got what they wanted. We were able to go under contract and establish my client in their new Atlanta-home on Armour Drive. I learned a lot of lessons on this deal, but the ultimate lesson was that patience, perseverance, and serenity under fire are all necessary to complete any deal that develops over the course of months.
Keep up the great work, John!