Atlanta is working with Midtown Alliance and the Midtown Neighbors Association to create a more user-friendly ordinance.

The City of Atlanta has collaborated with the Midtown Alliance and the Midtown Neighbors Association (MNA) to identify critical revisions to the zoning code to regulate orderly growth in the Piedmont Avenue SPI-17 District into the future. The proposed regulations aim to simplify, clarify, and make this district more consistent with other SPI districts. The only changes proposed are text changes and not changes to the zoning map; therefore, no properties are proposed to be rezoned.

The Zoning Review Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing on March 3, 2022, or March 10, 2022. The text amendments they will be reviewing include:

• Providing procedures consistent with other SPI districts.
• Reformatting and updating text into tables including allowed uses, allowed heights, open space, streetscaping elements. Also, pedestrian and vehicular accessibility are clarified, including parking counts and the building’s active use depths and fenestration (windows).
• Updating specific design criteria, including prohibiting EIFS, tree grates, arcades, overzealous tree installation, and further regulating criteria for curb-cuts and parking decks. This is intended for better compatibility to the Midtown Garden residential area to the east and greater consistency with the City’s transportation plans.

The Piedmont Avenue Special Public Interest District is divided into four (4) subareas and include Subarea 1: 14th and Piedmont; Subarea 2: Piedmont North; Subarea 3: 10^th; and Piedmont. Subarea 4: Piedmont South.

According to City documents, the updated SPI-17 code will reinforce Piedmont Avenue’s strengths, including creating a walkable neighborhood with a balance of low and medium density uses. The district will continue to transition between the high mixed-use densities in the SPI-16 district to the west and lower residential densities in the Midtown Garden residential area to the east. New development will have similar landscape and streetscape design requirements to be compatible with the existing environment along Piedmont Street. In addition, the encroachment of incompatible dense commercial uses and parking into the residential neighborhood will continue to be restricted.

Post by Anita Archambeau

Whatnow Atlanta

January 27th, 2022

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A private equity giant has paid a near record price for a prime development site in Midtown.

Northland Investment Corp. bought just under an acre at Spring Street and 17th for a whopping $19 million, or about $555 per land square square foot, according to Fulton County property deeds. It was sold by an affiliate of Drapac Capital Partners, an Australian real estate firm with a big footprint across Atlanta.

The all-cash deal closed on Dec. 22, according to Fulton County property records.

Four years ago, Drapac had paid just $4.7 million for the site, but a construction boom across Midtown since then has eroded the supply of development sites. It has left buyers forced with paying a premium for the top opportunities.

The site Northland purchased sits in the middle of several mixed-use projects and apartment towers either planned or underway. Next door is the site of a proposed 31-story apartment tower at 1405 Spring Street that JPX Works and Zeller Real Estate will develop. For comparison, JPX paid around $459 per land square foot for their half-acre site. Farther south, the Rockefeller Group paid $500 per land square foot for 1.1 acres at West Peachtree and 12th Street.

Northland primarily develops apartment and mixed-use properties. The firm owns several apartment projects across Atlanta, including The Sutton high-rises in Buckhead Village.

In Midtown, Northland is expanding in one of the top real estate markets in the Sunbelt. Nearby, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is opening its Atlantic Yards cloud computing and artificial intelligence office. It will bring 1,500 jobs. Also nearby is a new office tower anchored by Google.

Atlanta’s largest office landlord has acquired a half-acre just blocks from Tech Square, adding another property for its mixed-use project along West Peachtree.

Cousins Properties Inc. paid $6.9 million for the site along 7th Street, according to Fulton County property deeds. Cousins has adjusted its original plans for its 887 West Peachtree project from a single 26-story office tower to include apartments, a restaurant and additional greenspace in a second phase of construction. The new site on 7th Street provides more room for the amenities.

Cousins brought the property from Atlanta-based restaurant group Fifth Group Restaurants, according to property records. The restaurant group’s Midtown location of European-style bar Ecco is located on the property. Cousins intends to preserve the building and has leased it back to Fifth Group. The deal closed on Dec. 9.

For the last two years, Cousins has slowly assembled sites for the project along 7th and West Peachtree. In September, it paid about $3 million for a .15-acre site adjacent to the Ecco building, where a 12-unit apartment building from 1929 still sits. In April of 2020, the company closed on three commercial lots for a combined $6.4 million.

The most recent iteration of site plans presented in December to the Midtown Development Review Committee showed a 26-story tower with 400,000 square feet of office space build over street-level retail.

Previous proposals called for around 31 stories, an additional 100,000 square feet of office more dramatic architecture that resembled a razorblade on the skyline, but Cousins altered the plans to “cater to what we’re hearing from the market,” said Executive Vice President Kennedy Hicks.

“You’re seeing the Midtown market continue to grow and evolve,” Hicks said. “This location as part of Tech Square is interesting, and the more projects that get announced there, the more exciting this particular location is going to be.”

The project is joining an area with several recently developed office towers, including:

• Selig Enterprises’ Google-anchored 1105 West Peachtree, part of a larger mixed-use development
• Portman Holdings’ 712 West Peachtree integrated into Anthem Technology Center
• Cousins’ 758,000-square-foot Norfolk Southern campus.

Cousins expects to begin construction on the first phase of 887 West Peachtree this summer, Hicks said. Phase II will follow. The company has recently added active listings for the site on real estate inventory database CoStar.

Since 2010, nearly 60 buildings have risen within a square mile of booming neighborhood

Anyone returning to Midtown for the first time in a while has probably had that surreal experience of turning a corner and seeing a new city, a high-rise wall unfurling down the street that wasn’t there before.

Midtown Alliance has lent context as to why that happens.

As part of a debriefing event last week, Midtown Alliance CEO and president Kevin Green presented an updated aerial rendering depicting what’s been built across the booming subdistrict in the past decade and what’s to come.

Across roughly one square mile, 57 buildings have delivered since 2010, with the majority of them classified by Midtown Alliance as “major” developments.

Eight of them have opened this year alone.

Buildings that have delivered since roughly 2010 (blue), with more under construction today (green), plus some other projects in the development review process (orange) now. Midtown Alliance

The groundswell of investment in the once-sleepy district shows few signs of slowing.

Another 16 projects are under construction—including skyline-altering builds like Middle Street Partners’ 1081 Juniper towers—while another 10 buildings have cleared the development review process, according to Midtown Alliance.

In pandemic-addled 2021 alone, 10 projects have come before the Midtown Development Review Committee. If built as planned, they would bring nearly 2,000 more residential units, 60,000 square feet of retail, and more than 748,000 square feet of offices.

Where the bulk of Midtown’s development has been concentrated the past decade. Midtown Alliance

To put those numbers in visual terms, Midtown Alliance color-coded buildings in a recent aerial photo and inserted approximations of where major proposals would stand.

As staggering as that visual may be, eagle-eyed observers online pointed out that it’s actually missing a few under-construction projects, such as Toll Brothers’ 36-story Momentum Midtown and Portman Holdings’ first residential tower in the city. (Labeling Selig’s curvy 1010 Midtown condos as a post-2010 delivery, and calling John Dewberry’s supposedly viable Campanile redo “under construction” could also be described as fast and loose.)

In any case, as the illustration clearly shows, Midtown is evolving at a rapid clip, and former surface parking blocks and low-rise lots have become dense urban scenes like these below, with more on the way:

One major recent project, Norfolk Southern’s two-building HQ complex on West Peachtree Street, replaced what was largely surface parking across 3.4 acres.Jonathan Phillips/Urbanize Atlanta

Most Midtown buildings seen here didn’t exist a few years ago. Jonathan Phillips/Urbanize Atlanta

DECEMBER 06, 2021

BY JOSH GREEN – Urbanize Atlanta

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At the center of Midtown, Atlanta’s hottest commercial real estate market, stands a 21-story eyesore.

The renovation of the Campanile office tower, at 1155 Peachtree St., has been stalled for about two years, and the neglect is starting to show. Weeds grow through a chain link fence. Sheets of protective plastic wrap are peeling off the building’s exterior.

Meanwhile, across 14th Street, a $400 million renovation of Colony Square was completed this summer. Across Peachtree Street, the 1980s office building that will soon house the credit card network Visa recently underwent a facelift.

Campanile’s owner, John Dewberry, has ambitious plans for the office tower that include encasing the building in new marble, creating a penthouse office suite and expanding floor space by 50%, to 665,000 square feet. And his company has been awarded millions of dollars in tax breaks to help him accomplish that. But the project has hit financial snags along the way, delaying its completion.

A $186 million loan secured by the Campanile tower was recently sold as “non-performing,” meaning the lender considered the loan in distress. Liens piled up as the project came to a halt. The city of Atlanta filed a complaint labeling the renovation “abandoned.”

The pandemic has brought a new set of challenges, as well. Landlords like Dewberry face a market with soft demand and an oversupply of vacant offices. Many companies are reconsidering office space as more employees spend at least part of their week working remotely.

Dewberry said he’s not worried.

“Once we’re through, I think 14th and Peachtree Street is really going to be ground zero of Atlanta,” he said in an interview.

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Dewberry insists everything is in order and says construction will resume soon, perhaps by Christmas.

A work shutdown at a major intersection is enough to garner attention on its own. When it involves a developer whose outsized personality attracts both flattering and unflattering descriptions, it’s even more notable.

A 2017 Bloomberg article called Dewberry the “emperor of empty lots” for his unwillingness to develop valuable parcelson Peachtree Street. He owns about 1.7 million square feet of office, retail and hospitality properties in metro Atlanta, according to data provider CoStar.

Things started well at the Campanile. Dewberry bought the largely empty building at a discount, for $36 million in 2010, with plans to renovate. About three years later, the Development Authority of Fulton County (DAFC) granted a tax break estimated by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to be worth about $3 million. The DAFC justified the incentive because Dewberry’s plan could lure employers and jobs.

But that initial project failed to gain traction with would-be tenants, and Campanile remained about half-empty, according to a DAFC document from 2017. So Dewberry returned with a grander proposal.

That November, the DAFC board unanimously approved a new tax break replacing the 2013 agreement. DAFC did not publish estimated values of its tax breaks at the time, but the AJC estimates the 2017 deal could be worth about $5.7 million over a decade. In return, Dewberry promised an $88 million renovation, adding four floors of office space and street-front retail.

“The project is expected to result in approximately 1,319 new office jobs and 46 new retail jobs,” according to the DAFC meeting agenda. It’s unclear how those job estimates were determined.

It may seem counterintuitive to put so much work into a 1987 office building, but it’s based on sound reasoning, said Keith Pierce, vice president of research at brokerage Transwestern. Older buildings have a difficult time competing with brand-new products.

Dewberry is “essentially delivering a new building with 35-year-old bones,” Pierce said.

In the 11 years Dewberry Capital has controlled Campanile, tech corporations that pay a premium for office space have flocked to Midtown, including Google, Microsoft and Cisco. Law firms like Jones Day are also courted to relocate to the newest buildings.

Even during the pandemic, Midtown has been a bright spot in the overall mixed picture of metro Atlanta’s office market.

Landlords signed 501,411 square feet of new office space leases in Midtown during the three-month period ending Sept. 30, according to brokerage Avison Young. That was up from 156,626 square feet in the same period in 2020, but shy of the 252,615 square feet leased in the same period of 2019.

Over the decade as the Midtown market heated up, Campanile landed Pandora and Northwestern Mutual insurance as tenants, but otherwise missed the wave. It’s currently about 44% occupied, according to Avison Young.

“That entrance is still a mess. For a prospective tenant, that’s a turnoff,” said Henry Lorber, a distressed real estate expert. “You also have vicious competition going on from all the other offices in the area.”

Dewberry predicts that Campanile will soon join the ranks of Midtown’s trophy office towers and will be able to attract top-shelf tenants. But, he said, it’s taken longer than he expected.

The city’s building permit office last month filed an “abandoned project” complaint against Campanile and scheduled an inspection to gather information.

“It’s been a bit painful, and I apologize to all the folks that it looks like it does,” Dewberry said.

He said he’s resolved the abandoned project complaint. A spokeswoman with the city said the department continues to look into the matter.

Delays are part of the development game, Dewberry said. The mid-century building he bought in Charleston, S.C., in 2008 to make into his namesake hotel took eight years to renovate, but it has since claimed numerous awards, including a spot on Tripadvisor’s top 25 U.S. luxury hotels.

Dewberry said Campanile’s delays were caused by several factors, including a disagreement over price estimates with the former general contractor.

Delays can lead to financial problems, depending on the terms of agreements between a lender and borrower, said Nellie Shipley Sullivan, a commercial real estate attorney at Womble Bond Dickinson who’s not involved in the project. Some loans will place a borrower in default if construction stops for an extended period, she said.

Dewberry said he’s current on Campanile’s renovation loan.

“We have never been a penny short or a second late” on a loan payment, he said.

Privately owned Dewberry Group isn’t required to disclose financial details on a project. But a few red flags have appeared.

The Campanile loan was sold in August to a California-based investor that specializes in distressed debt. Dewberry said he doesn’t know why the loan was classified as distressed since he’s never made a late payment.

“We’re not happy about it,” he said.

Liens or construction delays can lead a lender to classify a loan as non-performing, experts say.

Some lenders might choose to sell their interests in a commercial loan deemed “non-performing” at a small loss because of doubts about the borrower’s ability to repay the loan. Some might run out of patience with the borrower and sell the loan.

The Campanile loan purchaser, Dornin Investment Group, and a seller, H.I.G. Realty Partners, did not respond to requests for comment. The other seller, Square Mile Capital, declined to comment through a spokesman.

The Campanile project has hit other potholes. In late 2020, at least nine liens were filed against Dewberry Group by Campanile subcontractors, according to Fulton County court records. The vendors, including concrete supplier Ready Made and heavy-equipment distributor Sunbelt Rentals, claimed that Dewberry owed a total of about $1.6 million.

In January and February, Dewberry paid all the subcontractors but one, and the liens were withdrawn.

The final lien, for about $163,000, was filed by general contractor Gay Construction. A notice of withdrawal or cancellation of the lien has not been filed in Fulton County court.

Gay Construction’s lien was a dispute over the final estimated cost, Dewberry said. Although he initially agreed to the estimate, the amount of which he declined to disclose, Dewberry said he later realized it was too expensive.

Gay Construction and Dewberry Group later reached a settlement. Calls to Gay Construction seeking comment were not returned.

By Andy Peters – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

J. Scott Trubey – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

November 16th, 2021

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Developers are building nearly 3M SF of new office space in Midtown Atlanta, more than half of all new office construction in the region. And if more developers have their way, Atlanta’s hottest office submarket could see more than 8M SF more rise there in the near future.

While the submarket hasn’t been immune to the office slowdown this year — Class-A offices in Midtown were 23.8% vacant as of June, among the highest rates in Metro Atlanta — developers say Midtown will remain the preferred destination for companies chasing talent and the amenities of larger cities.

“If you feel optimistic about job growth in Atlanta, then you’re obviously going to feel optimistic about what’s happening in Midtown,” said Selig Development Chief Operating and Development Officer Steve Baile, whose firm is developing the 1105 West Peachtree tower, which Google has leased.

“It’s not just an office market, it’s not just a residential market,” Baile said. “It feeds all food groups.”

While absorption was weak during the first six months of 2021 — Midtown absorbed just 56,600 SF of office space during that time, according to JLL, despite over 1M SF of deliveries — Colliers projects it will surge back in the third quarter, turning positive by 1.1M SF, thanks in part to Microsoft occupying its 500K SF offices at Atlantic Yards, Colliers Director of Research Scott Amoson said.

Experts say leasing momentum is gaining steam again in Midtown, which could justify developer optimism on the submarket.

“I do not believe that demand is waning in Midtown,” Transwestern Vice President of Research Keith Pierce wrote in an email. “The second half of 2021 will likely show some strong absorption numbers as companies like Microsoft and Google begin to take occupancy of their new hubs.”

The submarket has already lured a number of banner tenants, including names like Microsoft, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Google, as executives chased talent coming out of Georgia Tech, Georgia State University and the various Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the city.

The leasing momentum, along a large pipeline of office prospects, has allowed area landlords to command some of the highest rents in the metro area. Midtown rents today average more than $40 per SF, up from $34.50 just three years ago, according to data compiled by Transwestern.

“I’m still very bullish. If I had this level of activity and Covid had never been around, I’d be pleased,” said Chris Scott, a partner with Greenstone Properties, which is constructing 14th & Spring, a 320K SF office building that is set to be delivered by July. Greenstone has yet to sign any leases for the building.

“In Midtown, being a year out … the level of interest and presentations I felt were on par with what I kind of [was] expecting,” Scott said.

September 22, 2021

Jarred Schenke, Bisnow Atlanta

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Georgia Tech: Work between now and February to set stage for multi-tower build

Georgia Tech is putting plans in motion that officials say will set the stage for the next phase of Tech Square’s evolution: a block-altering, multi-tower project that’s been percolating for more than two years.

Schools officials released a traffic control plan Friday to help usher pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers around demolition set for the block bounded by West Peachtree, Spring, and 5th streets, and Biltmore Place. That’s one block north of Tech Square’s Coda, a John Portman and Associates-designed office tower.

Two low-rise buildings fronting West Peachtree Street will be razed for what demolition permits describe as “an interim parking lot on gravel and grass pavers.”

The two low-rise West Peachtree Street buildings in question.

That eastern side of the block is being converted into a temporary campus “flex area” for additional parking and greenspace, where outdoor concerts, food trucks, and pop-up restaurants are also expected to be staged in the short term.

The flex space will eventually house a complex totaling 400,000 square feet with at least two towers.

The most recent Phase III rendering available. Georgia Tech says designs in this artistic interpretation are likely to change.

Named for philanthropists Penny and William “Bill” George, the George Tower will be home to the highly ranked H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, in addition to other programs, according to Georgia Tech.

The second high-rise, Scheller Tower, will house Tech’s graduate and executive education programs in the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business.

Tech officials say both new Phase III towers are scheduled to open by 2025.

In the meantime, demolition work will close sections of the block’s existing parking lot and sidewalks.

To help mitigate that, part of 5th Street’s westbound lane will be converted into a bike lane, while eastbound lanes remain open to cars and bikes. Biltmore Place will be westbound only, according to project leaders.

This preparatory work for Phase III is set to last until February, and updates on construction are expected to be issued in coming months.

Plans for the Midtown block throughout fall and winter.

The block and bike lanes in question at 5th and Spring Streets, as seen in December.

The first sections of Tech Square opened in 2003, transforming what had been barren lots on the western edge of Midtown into an educational hub on the opposite side of the Connector from Georgia Tech’s campus.

The greenspace-laden Fifth Street Bridge Park debuted four years later as a means to pleasantly connect the two university entities.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021, 8:29AM

By JOSH GREEN

Urbanize Atlanta

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The proposed building would also hold about 75,000 square feet of office space and 15,000 square feet of retail space

Planned for 811 Peachtree Street, the newly proposed project would total 330,200 square feet at the southeastern corner of the intersection of Peachtree and 6th Street, which is currently a surface parking lot. Plans call for 76,500 square feet of office space and 15,600 square feet of retail space.

The Midtown DRC will review the project plans during its monthly meeting Tuesday evening, the agenda shows. Listed as part of the project team alongside PMG are global architecture and design firm Cooper Carry, planning and design engineering firm Kimley-Horn, and law firm Morris, Manning & Martin LLP.

The project would provide 455 parking spaces within a six-story podium parking deck.

The building lobby and amenities would be accessible from 6th Street.

A nearly 30-year-old company, PMG has led more than $7 billion worth of development, according to its website. Most of its projects are in New York and Florida, where its two offices are located.

PMG didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Located two blocks east of Tech Square, the project site of 811 Peachtree St. is also just south of Skyhouse South, a 23-story apartment tower acquired by national apartment owner Equity Residential last month. PMG’s development site was last acquired by an affiliate of developer The Integral Group in 2016 for about $12 million, according to county property records.

Property Markets Group’s plans represent one of two mixed-use tower projects the Midtown DRC will discuss on Tuesday. Also planned is a 30-story, 345-unit project on 10th Street by Mill Creek Residential.

 

Renderings: Midtown Alliance | A look at early plans for 180 10th St. and 811 Peachtree St.

 

Post by Dean Boerner (WhatNow Atlanta)

July 9th, 2021.

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