Polias

What Polias does

Polias is a privately held boutique commercial real estate group and placemaking firm founded by Dave Mulkey in 1996 and headquartered in Athens, Georgia. The company acquires, redevelops, and operates a curated portfolio of mixed-use retail, restaurant, and office properties anchored by the 1964-vintage Beechwood Shopping Center and including 700 Baxter, Markets at Epps Bridge (115,000+ SF), Runway coworking, West Broad Market, Briarcliff, Hancock House, 295 W. Clayton, and the Chapel Hill, NC-based Rams Plaza. Its stated model emphasizes stewardship over ownership, historical renovation, curated tenant mixes pairing national brands (REI, Sephora, Lululemon, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, Paris Baguette, Kendra Scott) with local operators, and community programming (Artist In Residence, Holiday Market events since 2020, the Renewing The City podcast, and a Digest publication).

Revenue is generated primarily through commercial property leasing and property management services, with an in-house team of approximately 12 people including directors of development, operations, and accounting, a Chief Creative Officer, facilities staff, and on-site craftspeople who support vertical integration from design to build-out. Distribution relies on a direct enterprise leasing team led by a Director of Development, a public available-spaces portal, and DocSend property brochures targeted at national retail brands and local/regional businesses seeking access to high-traffic Athens-area locations near the University of Georgia, hospitals, and affluent residential corridors. Strategic partnerships include a co-development with Collegetown Properties for the Hancock House mixed-use project, and the firm is pursuing pipeline expansion through AXIS, Butlers Grove, and additional Oconee County regional-corridor developments.

Name

Polias

Legal name

Polias

Website

https://polias.co

Company type

Private

Founded year

1996

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Polias is a privately held boutique commercial real estate and placemaking firm based in Athens, Georgia, founded in 1996 by Dave Mulkey. It owns, redevelops, and leases a curated portfolio of mixed-use retail, restaurant, and office properties in Athens and Chapel Hill, NC, anchored by national brands and supported by community programming and an in-house design-and-build team.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Athens

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Commercial Property Leasing: Revenue generated from leasing retail, restaurant, and office spaces across the company's portfolio of commercial properties in Athens, Georgia and Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2. Property Management Services: Tenant management and property maintenance services including tenant portal, work order submission, and ongoing property operations

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Polias is a boutique commercial real estate group that owns, redevelops, and manages a curated portfolio of retail, restaurant, and office properties in the Athens, Georgia area (with expansion to Chapel Hill, NC). The company reimagines historical retail centers into walkable, community-oriented destinations, leasing space to national, regional, and local brands and providing ongoing property management services including a tenant portal, facilities maintenance, and tenant relations.

Product overview

Polias is a boutique commercial real estate group and placemaking company based in Athens, Georgia. The company operates as a unified property management and development platform consisting of multiple interconnected services: a core commercial leasing platform that connects national, regional, and local brands with retail, restaurant, and office spaces across a curated portfolio of properties including Beechwood Town Center, 700 Baxter, Runway coworking space, Markets at Epps Bridge, Hancock House, 295 W. Clayton, Briarcliff, and Rams Plaza in Chapel Hill, NC. Supporting this core offering is a Tenant Portal for work order management, a Renewing The City Podcast for thought leadership, a Digest publication featuring design and placemaking stories, an Artist In Residence program for murals and installations, and community events including the Beechwood Holiday Market. The platform extends through strategic locations including Campus Edge properties near UGA, The West End district, and Regional Corridors in Oconee County, serving both commercial tenants and the broader Athens community.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Renewing The City: The official podcast of Polias—a commercial real estate firm reshaping Athens, Georgia, one property at a time. Each episode dives into community-building, place-making, and real case studies of transformative retail and mixed-use development.

Products and services

• Commercial Leasing Services Direct leasing services connecting national, regional, and local brands with retail, restaurant, and office spaces across Polias properties in Athens, GA and Chapel Hill, NC; leasing team conducts direct outreach to prospective enterprise tenants and lists available suites on polias.co.
• Property Management Services Ongoing property management for Polias-owned commercial real estate, including tenant relations, work-order handling, facilities maintenance, and tenant communication. Includes an online tenant portal for work order submission and tenant guides.
• Tenant Portal Online tenant management portal enabling tenants across Polias properties to submit work orders, access new tenant guides, and communicate with property management.
• Beechwood Town Center

Quantifiable outcome

• Multiple top-performing tenants: #2 Starbucks in State, #1 Planet Smoothie in State, #3 Fresh Market in State, #2 TJ Maxx in State, #2 LOFT in State, #2 Crunch in Nation, #2 Orangetheory in State, #2 Chicos in State, #2 Crumbl in State, #2 Willy's Grill in Nation
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers15 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Collegetown PropertiescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDevelopment partnership for Hancock House project. Collegetown Properties partnered with Polias to create a boutique blend of elegantly appointed townhomes, Airbnb accommodations, and street-front coffee from Foxtail Coffee.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Phillips Edison & Company: Public REIT focused on necessity-based, grocery-anchored neighborhood and community shopping centers. Similar tenant mix philosophy to Polias' Epps Bridge and Beechwood assets but at institutional scale.
• Federal Realty Investment Trust: Large public shopping center REIT focused on premium, mixed-use retail destinations in affluent coastal and dense suburban markets. Demonstrates the scaled version of Polias' curated-center strategy.
• Regency Centers Corporation: National REIT focused on grocery-anchored shopping centers co-tenanted with premium national retailers — the institutional counterpart to Polias' Trader Joe's/REI/Sephora-driven Beechwood.
• Kite Realty Group: Public REIT focused on high-quality open-air shopping centers in growth markets. Comparable retail-center operating model to Polias but with public-market scale and capital access.
• Brixmor Property Group: Public shopping center REIT with a large open-air center portfolio across the U.S. Comparable in product type but operates at materially greater scale than Polias.
• Site Centers: Public REIT focused on open-air shopping centers anchored by necessity and value retailers, often with mixed-use optionality. Comparable product type to Polias' portfolio at institutional scale.

Direct peers

• North American Properties: Boutique mixed-use and lifestyle retail developer behind Avalon and other college-town and suburban destinations. Closest publicly recognizable analog to Polias' placemaking-and-curation model applied to retail centers.
• Trademark Property Company: Boutique retail and mixed-use developer focused on lifestyle centers and mixed-use districts. Comparable to Polias in both scale and the curated, experience-led real estate approach.

Regional players

• GBT Realty Corporation: Regional retail real estate developer focused on the Southeast U.S., including mixed-use and lifestyle projects. Operates in overlapping geography and product category with Polias.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/poliasathens

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Polias