17,000 acres at Sea Island went for $57M
A Texas investment fund paid about $57 million for slightly more than 17,000 acres it recently bought from embattled Sea Island Co., one of Georgia's highest profile victims of the weakened economy and real estate crash.
Georgia Coast LP, a Texas partnership controlled by Joe Altemore and David Roan, and Stratford Land Group, a Dallas-based land fund, purchased 17,186 acres made up of four giant tracts known as Big Pasture, Little Pasture, Altama and Sinclair.
It paid $57.1 million for the tracts. The price was disclosed in public records early Friday.
Stratford Land will control the assets for a fund created to invest in land throughout Southeast and Southwest United States.
Atlanta Business Chronicle reported the Sea Island transaction July 19. At the time the sales price was undisclosed.
Another 2,341 acres are under contract to a separate buyer. That transaction could close by the end of July.
The fallout of the Great Recession ravaged the storied coastal five-star resort, which has laid off hundreds of employees over the past two years paperless payday loans. Home sales — which were to be the financial driver of the club’s enormous overhaul — plummeted, and even the ultra-wealthy clientele that Sea Island coveted as guests and members stayed at home.
Sea Island Co. went into default on at least $400 million in debt outstanding from a massive renovation of its Cloister and Lodge hotels and residential developments including Frederica, a 3,000-acre community limited to 400 to 500 single-family homes on the north end of St. Simons Island.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Atlanta-based land team of Ron Willingham, Matt Hawkins, and Pierce Owings, in partnership with Harvey Gilbert and Bill Lattimore of C&W’s Savannah affiliate Gilbert & Lattimore, brokered the deal.