Local broker lists Atlanta property

Tampa's Franklin Street Financial Partners has landed a plum sales assignment for an aging hotel property in Atlanta. But the story isn't so much about the building as it is the lounge within.

The six-story Clermont Hotel, which features a skeezy-yet-legendary bar frequented by college students, celebrities and other hipsters in the Big Peach, was put on the market as a potential redevelopment site earlier this month. The now-vacant hotel originally opened in 1924 as an apartment building along Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Midtown Atlanta, and gangster Al Capone is said to be among its prior residents.

Yet that pales in comparison to the stories generated by the Clermont Lounge, which has been in continual operation for more than 40 years. Cheap beer and burlesque entertainment are the big draws, and that's really as much as Coffee Talk can say without being impolite.

“This is a unique opportunity for an investor to buy a landmark property that can be transformed into any number of potential uses,” says Jake Reid, Franklin Street's senior director in Atlanta. The hotel contains at least 90,000 square feet on 1.3 acres, and whatever happens to the lounge will be entirely up to the new owner.

(In case you missed it, Andrew Wright, CEO and managing partner of Franklin Street, was highlighted in our “40 Under 40” special issue July 2.)