Office park bought at deep discount | Ansley Real Estate stays independent | Townhomes for Lake Oconee

Welcome to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor Chris Fuhrmeister, bringing you the business news to keep you in the know. Here's a selection of our top stories this week.

An Atlanta firm has scored another deeply discounted suburban office park that had been on the verge of foreclosure.

An affiliate of Insignia LLC has acquired Parkside Terraces after the previous owner surrendered the 20-acre Alpharetta campus to avoid foreclosure. The deal closed Dec. 30, according to property records.

Insignia took title to the property for almost 70% less than the previous owner paid about six years ago. The deal is another example of how far some office property values are falling.

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A leading luxury real estate brokerage in Atlanta has a new national partner???one of the largest residential real estate firms in the country.

New York-based Compass Inc. on Jan. 13 closed its $444 million deal to acquire Chicago-based residential brokerage @properties and Christie’s International Real Estate, which includes Ansley Real Estate.

Founder Bonneau Ansley III told Atlanta Business Chronicle in an exclusive interview that the acquisition would introduce opportunities for more financial support for the brokerage without altering its existing structure or day-to-day operations.

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An Atlanta-area construction firm that specializes in build-to-rent housing is looking to expand its operations to central Georgia.

Jim Chapman Construction Group plans to construct 152 townhomes?within unincorporated Putnam County called?The Cottages at Lake Oconee.

About 85 miles southeast of Atlanta, Lake Oconee is the second-largest lake in Georgia, bordered by three counties and spanning more than 19,000 acres. Home to a number of golf courses and?one of three Ritz-Carlton hotels in the state, the reservoir serves as a popular vacation destination for visitors looking to fish, boat and hit the links.

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Flush with capital from a private equity investment, Homrich Berg is making moves. The Atlanta-based wealth management firm has completed a major acquisition.

Homrich Berg has closed its purchase of Towson, Maryland-based WMS Partners. WMS acts as a family office and registered investment advisor for multiple affluent families and individuals. It has $6.4 billion of assets under management, and the acquisition increases the size of Homrich Berg by 34% to nearly $25 billion of assets under management.

The firms did not disclose terms of the deal, but Homrich Berg President and CEO Thomas Carroll previously told Atlanta Business Chronicle the acquisition is easily the biggest of the roughly 10 mergers-and-acquisitions deals the company has done since its inception in 1989.

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A year after they purchased a large swath of South Downtown that long ago was Atlanta’s first commercial district, venture capitalists David Cummings and Jon Birdsong reached a milestone:?completing Atlanta Tech Village-Sylvan.

The startup incubator aims to bring hundreds of entrepreneurs to a more than century-old former hotel at 235 Mitchell St. It marks the third location of Atlanta Tech Village, with the original opening in Buckhead over a decade ago.?

The hope is to spark an innovation district in South Downtown, where the venture led by Cummings and Birdsong is revitalizing 10 blocks of the city’s historic core.?

That's all for this week's top stories. Thanks for reading Atlanta Business Chronicle! For plenty more local business headlines, visit the Chronicle's website. Questions? Comments? Concerns? News tips? Send them to [email protected].