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Kevin Kern is looking to go down the hatch.
Kern, a partner with Grove Street Partners, has been in talks with famed restaurateur Dante Stephensen to buy his property in Buckhead to make way for a larger mixed-use development that will include an office building, boutique hotel and retail.
Grove Street already owns property at 3376 Peachtree Road, the site of the former Art Institute of Atlanta, which was razed in 2003 to make way for a future office development.
Stephensen's 2.1-acre property is the current home of Dante's Down the Hatch restaurant, renowned for not only its fondue but also its interior decorations and its live crocodiles.
"We are very interested," Kern said. "It's a fabulous site for one thing if you can put all those independent pieces together."
Post Properties Inc. (NYSE: PPS) founder John Williams has a minority ownership in Grove Street Partners.
But Stephensen was lukewarm on the prospect of selling out, although he called Grove Street's offer "legit."
"We have never put it on the market, but we don't discourage people from making offers on it," Stephensen said. "There's an advantage to having a nice juicy piece of property, because people make offers.
"But with Kern, Stephensen said, "We, were close to reaching a point of liking what they were offering. We had reached a point where contracts were written." At that...