Even Larry's More Positive

Time heals all wounds, including Cousins Properties' Larry Gellerstedt's about Atlanta's commercial real estate market. Larry (on left with Regent Partners' David Allman and Cushman & Wakefield's John O'Neill) was strikingly upbeat at last week's Bisnow Atlanta State of the Market event. “I think we have a good few years here,” he says. Larry's been warming up to Atlanta for more than a year now, in stark contrast to his famous views here. (No hard feelings, we don't hold grudges, this isn't Game of Thrones.)

What's more telling now is Larry's views on Texas. “Texas, in my opinion, is getting a little too hot right now on the development side,” he says. (Also the weather, it's almost the summer.) This comes just months after the developer broke ground on Colorado Tower, a 29-story office building in Austin. That said, Texas does have its compelling factors. During the recovery, Texas commanded 7% of the US population, but created 47% of all new US jobs. 

Even better news came from C&W's John. Back story: Atlanta lost 204,000 jobs during the recession. Of those, 80,000 were office jobs. We've recovered both. (Now you don't have to play your own employees in softball leagues.) And the tech sector is back, John tells us. That's been demonstrated in office absorption, which posted 800k SF in Q1 '14, an 11% jump from the same period last year.

During our java schmoozing, we met up with Alston's Natalie Springfield, The Morsberger Group's Emory Morsberger, and Freeman, Mathis & Gary's Neil Wilcove. And that's when we found out that Emory is attempting to establish a CID for the Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport area. The deal could include a bus circulator that would involve three current CIDs and the airport area from North Clayton County, Virginia Avenue, and Hapeville (we're in if it stops at the Dwarf House).