A New Downtown Atlanta Office Tower Annoucement Should be Imminent. (Marietta: 2015, lease)

[Atlwarrior]

Since the shock of Coke Cola announcement of moving 1,000 IT worker to the Suntrust Building. The 191 Tower, GA Pacific Tower being near fully leased. Also GSU buying up everything standing. There is absolutely nothing preventing a new tower from coming Downtown Atlanta.

I think Coke Cola global influence can cause others Corporation to look Downtown also. Also anyone know what's the latest news is about the once planned new Allen Plaza tower and Time Square Atlanta building.

[bryantm3]

way to give everyone blue balls, buddy.

from what i understand, a large portion of the BoA tower is still vacant. right now, i think the demand is just catching up to the supply. i'd bet we're a couple of years out from a major skyscraper proposal. there is still a bunch of office space in downtown that is empty, some of it is being converted to residential (such as the building on piedmont north of baker). once you see office space becoming essentially unavailable for a year or so, that's when you'll see these proposals happen.

that isn't to say that proposals don't exist. you can bet that there's companies out there sitting on all sorts of magnificent plans— they're just waiting until they can get the best return on their investment.

i can't find the article but i just saw it yesterday, but states like georgia, california and new jersey won't reach pre-recession levels until 2015. states like north dakota and texas have already popped back, but it'll be a while for us.

[avbanks]

I also would guess we're about two years out, but the the pace of construction intown has been greater than anyone expected so it could come sooner. Unemployment still has a lot of room to decline and I think only 65-70% of available office space is leased.

[cwkimbro]

I'd look at another metric (granted, it is highly related...but a bit different)

Office rent rates (per sq. ft) in downtown are still low, while it is higher in midtown and Buckhead.

The only new build projects that might happen is if an existing company (Georgia Pacific or Coke...for example) wants to expand presence on or around their particular existing campus.

The other alternative is there is possibility of small to mid-sized projects (not huge towers) getting underway in key areas where the development can charge a premium price. A key area to focus on is around Centennial Park and parts of the old Allen Plaza Project (key access to highway, high visibility, near the park/rebounding area, and lower cost of site-prep for development).

Mostly the rent rates need to increase

[arjay57]

I could see it happening. Regent Partners bought the Allen Plaza site and they have been huge players in Buckhead and Perimeter. Cousins bought the 191 building and they don't mess around either.

Remember the while Midtown thing happened almost overnight. When the IBM building was announced people thought that was so far out of the city's business district that it would never survive. But within a few years several other towers were built and viola, Midtown was suddenly on the map.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I could see it happening. Regent Partners bought the Allen Plaza site and they have been huge players in Buckhead and Perimeter. Cousins bought the 191 building and they don't mess around either.

Remember the while Midtown thing happened almost overnight. When the IBM building was announced people thought that was so far out of the city's business district that it would never survive. But within a few years several other towers were built and viola, Midtown was suddenly on the map.

This is a great point.

I often have trouble explaining to people that Midtown wasn't apart of the city's "core" and not apart of the original Downtown skyline. There are enough newcomers here that lump Midtown and Downtown together.

In many ways it is the original transit oriented development. Many people miss that when they criticize how much we didn't develop many of our rail stations.

There is aerial photo from 1968 of Midtown that is pretty incredible to show people, but the only copy I can find is posted on a competitor to city-data's website.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

This is a great point.

I often have trouble explaining to people that Midtown wasn't apart of the city's "core" and not apart of the original Downtown skyline. There are enough newcomers here that lump Midtown and Downtown together.

In many ways it is the original transit oriented development. Many people miss that when they criticize how much we didn't develop many of our rail stations.

There is aerial photo from 1968 of Midtown that is pretty incredible to show people, but the only copy I can find is posted on a competitor to city-data's website.

Found this on Georgia Tech's capital projects website.

[emcee squared]

In the world of large-scale office buildings, two to three years out can be classified as 'imminent.' I'm sure there are many plans for buildings, both new and ones that were tabled because of the recession, but the market just isn't there to support them yet. Also, financing is much more difficult today than it was ten years ago and the developer is going to want the greatest ROI possible.

It'll happen, just not today.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Found this on Georgia Tech's capital projects website.

Awesome photo!