Georgia-Pacific To Remake Iconic Downtown Atlanta HQ Tower With Apartments, Retail
The paper and packaging maker giant Georgia-Pacific unveiled towering ambitions Thursday for the redevelopment of its world headquarters in Downtown Atlanta.
The company plans to convert the uppermost floors of the 51-story tower it owns into 400 apartment units while keeping 600K SF of the building as offices that would include Georgia-Pacific's headquarters and the Atlanta office of its parent company, Koch Industries, it announced Thursday.
Georgia-Pacific also plans to convert some of Georgia-Pacific Center into 125K SF of retail, restaurant and entertainment space and add a 35K SF central plaza.
The tower, Atlanta's sixth-tallest building at 697 feet, today holds 1.3M SF of office space, and the new apartments would be among the highest in the southeast. The company is targeting to complete the conversion by fall 2027, it announced in a press release.
Georgia-Pacific CEO Christian Fischer, who was promoted to the role in 2017, said the redevelopment project could create economic growth and cause a halo effect to surrounding businesses and the city.
“The office landscape has changed, and we recognize that the adaptive reuse of our site and office tower can create greater long-term value,” Fischer said in a statement. “We are also acutely aware of the need for more residential, shopping, dining and entertainment options in our Downtown neighborhood.”
The company didn't disclose the cost of the conversion, how much space it would occupy in the office portion and how much it would lease out to other companies. A spokesperson for Georgia-Pacific told Bisnow that it is vetting potential investors for the project.
"The project is still in the early stages, but we will be exploring all incentive programs that may make sense for this project,” Suzanne Maynard, the project lead for Georgia-Pacific, told Bisnow in an email.
Georgia-Pacific Center is at 133 Peachtree St. next door to the Peachtree Center MARTA Station and a mile east of both Mercedes-Benz Stadium and CIM Group’s Centennial Yards redevelopment.
“A thoughtful mixed-use project of this scale on Peachtree promises to launch a long-awaited renaissance for our city’s most important main street business district,” said Transwestern Executive Managing Director Clark Dean, who was tapped to help establish and implement the new vision.
Georgia-Pacific also has plans for future redevelopment phases on the block where the 1.5M SF tower, first built in 1982, is situated. Future development could include a hotel, more retail and residences.
When asked whether Georgia-Pacific would include affordably priced units in the apartments, Maynard said, "We are evaluating a variety of residential offerings, but it’s still too early in the design process to know what the final mix will be.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in the release that the project aligns with his goal to add new housing units downtown and convert unused office space into other uses. He also has set a goal of building 20,000 new affordable housing units by 2030, a potential negotiation point in the incentives Georgia-Pacific will seek to make use of.
“This transformative redevelopment is a significant step in moving Atlanta forward, turning an important block in the heart of the city into a vibrant and welcoming destination that breathes new life into downtown,” Dickens said.
