Parkside Partners Taking Adaptive Reuse To Suburbs
One of Atlanta's bigger players in loft office and adaptive reuse is taking the urban-centric project type to the suburbs.
Parkside Partners is underway with retrofitting up to 100K SF of former flex office and warehouse into trendy loft office in Peachtree Corners, the affluent bedroom community in Gwinnett County some 20 miles north of Downtown Atlanta. Earlier this year, Parkside acquired 125 Technology Parkway, a 125K SF facility formerly used by Honeywell.
“We're negotiating with several tenants as we speak,” Parkside principal Kyle Jenks said.
Jenks said when it comes to creative and loft office — those built in older structures, especially former warehouses — the suburbs may be the next frontier. Parkside has been among a handful of developers who have been establishing creative office and mixed-use projects in Atlanta, including Paces Properties, Jamestown Properties, New City Properties and Selig Enterprises.
Parkside's portfolio of creative office includes transforming a former small office building at 1280 West Peachtree St. in Midtown into the headquarters for Interface Inc. and Parkside Chamblee, a two-building 54K SF adaptive reuse project that is now nearly fully leased after a recent 23K SF deal with Hearst Autos.
It recently inked deals with both Pattillo Industrial Real Estate and geotechnical consulting firm Golder for its Trackside mixed-use project, also in Chamblee.
Parkside is in the process of permitting Boundary, a planned 150K SF project that will redevelop three tired Midtown buildings at Peachtree and 17th streets in Midtown, Jenks said.
Like most other developers, Parkside's loft office efforts have focused on the markets within the Interstate 285 ring and Atlanta's urban core. The project in Peachtree Corners – called Bureau – will include a clubhouse and social hub with conference room and outdoor and collaborative spaces, Jenks said.
While a small segment of the overall office market — around 4M SF, roughly 2% — loft office and adaptive reuse office is growing fast in demand, Colliers International Atlanta Senior Vice President Huston Green said last year. Loft office absorption growth outpaced the market seven times over in 2016, Green said.
When it comes to Peachtree Corners, Jenks said the demand is from companies already out there that want to locate in these new environments but are unable or unwilling to move into the city to get them.
“Creative space is in favor, and we're seeing it continue to be so,” Jenks said. “And I think you're going to see more and more adaptive reuse in the suburbs.”
That demand is what some coworking groups are chasing in the suburbs as well, as players like Industrious and Office Evolution open locations outside the city core. It also has traditional office landlords attempting to find ways to create features found in many adaptive reuse urban office projects in their suburban properties as well.
“This is our first one outside the Perimeter for a while,” Jenks said. "We'll continue to evaluate other [suburban] markets."
