The 10 Biggest Office Buildings Underway In Atlanta, Which Have Nearly All Their Space To Fill
It’s been said that commercial real estate is to Atlanta what cars are to Detroit. Metro Atlanta has thrived on growth and with that a skyline that has bloomed exponentially over the decades.
Atlanta’s love affair with growth may explain why developers, despite facing an office market flooded with the most empty space in its history, are under construction with more than 2.5M SF of prime office space in the city. But only 11% of that space is pre-leased, according to Avison Young data, compared to the pre-leased average of 48% in the biggest U.S. office markets, according to Colliers.
But hope springs eternal, especially since data shows companies are increasingly gravitating to the newest and most heavily amenity-laden office projects.
“New buildings have been getting absorbed much quicker than older ones,” Colliers Research Manager Jonathan Koes said. “Obviously, with the mixed-use environment, you have amenities built in that will attract tenants into the area.”
That means the millions of uncommitted space in the 10 private buildings 100K SF or larger under construction now in the city — detailed below — will likely draw tenants from existing space elsewhere in Atlanta and could serve to drive up vacancy overall.
Metro Atlanta's 173.5M SF office market is 28.2% vacant, according to brokerage firm Savills, the highest number it has tracked since it started researching the region in 2005. Metro Atlanta’s sublease supply is also at an all-time high of 8.7M SF, a more than 40% increase year-over-year, according to Savills.
But experts see leasing activity beginning to build momentum through the second quarter. The 4.5M SF of leases executed in the first half of 2023 accounted for 72% of the five-year average for the same period, Koes said in a recent Colliers report.
“It seems like activity is there, at least on the smaller size. I don’t know if some of these buildings are willing to take single-floor tenants,” said Sara Barnes, Avison Young’s Southeast market intelligence manager. “But right now the half-building, full-building tenants I think aren’t just there yet.”
Below is a list of the 10 office developments, and how much space for which they have already secured tenants, that are underway in Atlanta, according to Avison Young and Colliers data.
1020 Spring St.
Submarket: Midtown
Office Space: 538K SF
Developer: Portman Holdings
Delivery: July 2025
Pre-leasing: None
Portman began construction on the planned three-tower project called Spring Quarter that will rise on the property once occupied by H.M. Patterson & Son – Spring Hill Chapel funeral home. Portman’s residential arm is already underway with Sora, a 30-story luxury apartment tower also on the site, with room for a future third tower.
The office tower is being built completely on spec and aimed at capturing the tech demand that has been streaming into Midtown, Portman previously told Bisnow. The developer is preserving the historic funeral home, which was built in 1928 and the site of many prominent funerals, including Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and former Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield, to convert it to another use on the property.
Science Square Labs
Submarket: Downtown
Office Space: 365K SF
Developers: Trammell Crow and Georgia Tech
Delivery: March 2024
Pre-leasing: 9.5%
Georgia Tech partnered with Trammell Crow on an 18-acre life sciences campus topped by Science Square Labs, a 365K SF lab and office tower at Northside Drive and Cameron M. Alexander Boulevard.
The project is seeking to capture the growing demand for life sciences space in Metro Atlanta. Already Georgia Tech secured a 35K SF lease for Venture Development Engine, a coworking lab concept run by Portal Innovations.
Science Square Labs is part of the larger Science Square campus near Georgia Tech that will include a 280-unit apartment community developed by Trammell Crow’s residential arm, High Street Residential, as well as 25K SF of retail and parking.
Echo Street West
Submarket: Westside Midtown
Office Space: 275K SF
Developer: Lincoln Property Company Southeast
Delivery: August 2023
Pre-leasing: None
The office component, a four-story curved office building framed by timber and steel over underground parking, is part of the larger Echo Street West mixed-use campus and has yet to secure a tenant for an expected opening this summer.
But Echo Street West could have a leg up on its competition: Located just west of Georgia Tech's campus and about a mile from Westside Park and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the campus is situated in a designated opportunity zone. That could provide a lure for LPC to attract tenants into the project; a business can obtain qualified opportunity fund investment so long as half of its revenue stream is derived from activity within the opportunity zone. The 19-acre project also is near the Atlanta BeltLine’s westside path in the English Avenue neighborhood.
Lincoln also is developing a 292-apartment complex and 50K SF of retail on the site.
1050 Brickworks
Submarket: Westside Midtown
Office Space: 225K SF
Developers: Sterling Bay and Asana Partners
Delivery: December 2024
Pre-leasing: None
The 14-story creative office building, rising off West Marietta Street just west of Georgia Tech’s campus, is an addition to the Brickworks redevelopment, one of the first West Midtown projects that transformed former warehouses into office and retail. Charlotte-based Asana paid nearly $80M for the property in 2020, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported.
The project, which broke ground in November after Asana partnered with Chicago-based Sterling Bay, also is incorporating more than 22K SF of indoor and outdoor amenity spaces, private balconies on various levels, 14K SF of retail and an eighth-floor fitness center, lounge, bar and private library.
1072 West Peachtree
Submarket: Midtown
Office Space: 224K SF
Developer: Rockefeller Group
Delivery: Late 2025 to early 2026
Pre-leasing: None
The New York-based developer is the latest to break ground on an Atlanta skyscraper. Rockefeller is planning a 61-story mixed-use tower — to be among the tallest buildings in Atlanta — that will top its 224K SF of office with 350 luxury residential units at the corner of 12th and West Peachtree streets.
Rockefeller picked up the site, once home to a U.S. Post Office, in 2021 for $25M and then partnered with two subsidiaries of Japanese firms, Taisei USA and Mitsubishi Estate New York, to launch the project. Rockefeller previously developed the 64-unit 40 West 12th St. condominium tower that is part of Selig Enterprises’ larger 1105 West Peachtree mixed-use project.
The Interlock Tower
Submarket: West Midtown
Office Space: 209K SF
Developer: SJC Ventures
Delivery: August 2023
Pre-leasing: 29%
Coming off the success of the initial phase of The Interlock, SJC Ventures broke ground last year on its second helping of the West Midtown project. Although the project is partially pre-leased, none of the office space has been claimed by tenants as of press time in what is now dubbed the Interlock Tower, SJC principal Jeff Garrison told Bisnow. The retail lineup in the second phase, so far, includes Starbucks, champaign lounge Pinky Promise and Wagyu House Atlanta. PeakMade Real Estate also is underway with a five-story, 670-bed student housing building atop a Publix Super Markets store at the project.
The first phase, located on Howell Mill Road a block from Georgia Tech, consists of a 200K SF office building anchored by WeWork and Georgia Tech Ventures as well as the Solis Apartments, Bellyard Hotel and 100K SF of retail. SJC sold that phase earlier this year to its original debt provider on the project, Armada Hoffler Properties, for $215M. The sale didn’t include the hotel or apartments.
The second phase was financed by Ameris Bancorp and Packard Capital and other family office investors, Garrison previously told Bisnow. While office leasing has slowed since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, Garrison told Bisnow this week that the property is seeing an uptick in prospective tenants.
“In the last month, we’ve probably run 12 different tours, some as big as the entire building and some full-floor tenants,” he said. “There are major players looking to come out of the sort of boring suburban office space.”
Junction Krog District
Submarket: Downtown
Office Space: 135K SF
Developers: Portman Holdings and PCCP LLC
Delivery: September 2023
Pre-leasing: None
Portman has yet to snag any leases for its soon-to-be delivered, mixed-use project at 667 Auburn Ave., across from Krog Street and adjacent to the BeltLine’s Eastside Trail. But the developer already has purchased a neighboring 1.3-acre site in the Old Fourth Ward that will act as a second phase to this one, including with plans for more office, Rough Draft Atlanta previously reported.
Portman did recently sign up restaurateurs Pietro Gianni and Stephen Peterson for an Italian eatery concept called YEPPA&co., and Portman Managing Director Travis Garland told Bisnow there is further retail activity on the project.
“We got another restaurant deal signed, but we haven’t announced that yet,” Garland said.
Garden Hills
Submarket: Buckhead
Office Space: 130K SF
Developers: Brand Properties, Highwoods Properties and Batson-Cook Co.
Delivery: September 2023
Pre-leasing: 92%
By the time Brand Properties and Highwoods broke ground on the boutique office building off Peachtree Road, more than 60% of the office space was claimed. The project, dubbed 2827 Peachtree by Highwoods CEO Ted Klinck during a recent earnings call, is now 92% pre-leased, Highwoods Senior Vice President Heather Lamb told Bisnow, but no new tenant names have been revealed. The $79M project is rising on a previously empty lot next to Fellini’s Pizza, just south of Buckhead Village.
Waldo’s Old Fourth Ward
Submarket: Midtown
Office Space: 119K SF
Developer: Lucror Resources
Delivery: Q4 2024
Pre-leasing: None
The owner of the historic Flatiron Building in Downtown is underway with a mixed-use campus in the trendy Old Fourth Ward neighborhood that includes office space. Lucror is building a six-story, heavy timber office building at 40 Boulevard, which finally got underway after years of delays earlier this year, Urbanize Atlanta reported. Lucror also is developing a 100-room hotel that is slated to carry the Motto by Hilton flag.
Part of the project delay was a result of the engineering needed to develop a two-story underground parking deck, Lucror Managing Principal Arun Nijhawan told Bisnow. And like many in the Midtown area, Nijhawan said he’s seeing an uptick in activity from tenants looking to downsize their office footprint and move into the city from the suburbs.
“They’re willing to pay more per square foot, but they’re taking less square footage,” he said.
619 Ponce
Submarket: Midtown
Office Space: 109K SF
Developer: Jamestown
Delivery: April 2024
Pre-leasing: 67%
Jamestown is expanding its iconic Ponce City Market adaptive reuse project with a second office building at the site. The developer has already snagged software company Sage into 57K SF of the under-construction, timber-framed creative office development, and retailer Pottery Barn also is opening an 18K SF store on the ground floor.
