Central Perimeter Momentum

This morning at our Future of Central Perimeter event, Ackerman's Kris Miller trumpteted the 400 development, while staying non-committal about specific tenants (including IGH). Our event was at the Retreat at Perimeter Summit. Kris—second from left with DTZ's Chris White, City of Sandy Springs Councilman Gabriel Sterling, HJ Russell's Jerome Russell and Cousins Properties' Bill Hollett—says a new office building will soon make sense, assuming you can achieve that $30-plus/SF rents. “I think the year of building stuff and hoping they will come is gone,” he says. But prime space in Central Perimeter now—what's left—is reaching as much as $28/SF, which means it's not far off for a company to anchor fresh space.

Jerome predicts that by 2025, MARTA will have extended farther north along Ga 400, further urbanizing Central Perimeter. And Gabriel predicts Central Perimeter could actually surpass the City of Atlanta with the number of corporate HQs. (Good news for tailors and tie salesmen in the Central Perimeter.)

We snapped Raney Real Estate's Ben Raney and Greenstone Properties' Harvey Rudy during our breakfast schmooze before the event, where 300 came out. Harvey says his firm just snagged a 110k SF development assignment with LINN Energy for a build-to-suit HQ in Oklahoma City. Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Aaron Sommer and Bert Sanders repped LINN. 

Perimeter Community Improvement District's Chuck Altimari and UPS' Steve Slifer. Chuck used to be the corporate real estate head of UPS, but he's retired now, spending his spare time working out and helping the PCID. He says the PCID is focused on rounding up further funding for the I-285/Ga 400 dream project: "You still have over $200M left to fund."

We also chatted up Cox Communication's Cody Partin and Lowe Engineers' Chris Owens, who's working on the Cox HQ project in Central Perimeter. Cody says the firm is on track development-wise and Cox employees should begin moving into the new facilities by Memorial Day of next year.