37 replies to this topic

[Martinman]

Allen Plaza is slowly being revealed as much more than a collection of three or four office towers.  We are learning that what Barry and Post have planned there will be a very dense, very urban neighborhood and will have a HUGE impact on the heart of the city.  

An article in ULI detailed whats planned for Allen Plaza
- 2 million sf of office
- 2 hotels (500 total rooms)
- 2,500 - 3,000 residential units (in over a dozen high-rises)
- 200,000 sf of retail

I think it deserves its own thread as we follow its progress.

Webcam



30 Allen Plaza (completed)


55 Allen Plaza (under construction)


45 Allen Plaza (under construction)


50 Allen Plaza (proposed)

Edited by Martinman, 14 October 2006 - 07:48 PM.

[Martinman]

Now details on the residential planned for Allen Plaza are beginning to emerge

The following description was posted by another forumer

"The Downtown Development Review Committee reviewed the first phase of Post Allen Plaza for the block bounded by West Peachtree Place, COP Drive, Simpson and Williams Street on Friday. I must confess that I was quite impressed,

The project is on a very tight site, but fortunately they hired a quality architecture firm - Cooper Carry that understands urbanism. As such, the plan relates well to the street on all block faces with first floor retail (that even steps down the hill), doors, attractive loading docks, a quality streetscape and new on-street parking.

The program includes a 202 room hotel, 175 condos, 350+/- apartments and 30,000 sf of retail and around 900 parking spaces (including public spaces).

The building is a tower on a podium typolgy.  On top of the base is an "L" shaped tower that sets back slightly from the base. The long side of the "L" is parallel to Simpson Street. The tower is designed to look like two towers. The long leg of the "L" is a glass and precast "stone" tower rising 42 floors (450 feet +/-) above COP Drive, while the lower 19 (?) floor short leg is all glass. It is truly elegant; traditional yet with a contemporary flair.

The condos occupy the top floors of the long leg of the "L." Below them is the hotel. The short leg of the "L" is the apartment tower.

The best thing about this project is that, unlike every Novare project, the podium is NOT parking, so there are actually living units or hotel rooms facing the street on the base along COP Drive, Williams Street, Simpson Street and half of West Peachtree. The parking is underground and internal to the block, other than a small portion along West Peachtree Place. On said facade, the garage facade is no different from the rest of the building.

They plan to break ground in April on this block, and will be coming in soon for approval of more housing and retail on the block to the east. They also are developing plans for the other half of the Museum Tower block, as well as several other area blocks. "

Edited by Martinman, 14 October 2006 - 07:49 PM.

[krazeeboi]

I just rode by this site tonite (I'm in Atlanta for the weekend) and I'm impressed with the progress, as well as that of the Centennial Twelve project not too far from it. I didn't realize the Southern Power building was a part of the Allen Plaza project. Can't wait to see how this project will shape up!

[teshadoh]

^  Southern Power was their first tenant, though Southern Power had anchored a tower just a few blocks from their current home.  But of course - people like new offices, if they didn't their wouldn't be a need for at least a quarter of Atlanta's skyscrapers.

[krazeeboi]

^I believe it. Didn't 1180 Peachtree's tenants all relocate from existing towers that were perfectly OK?

[Andrea]

krazeeboi, on Oct 15 2006, 03:48 PM, said:

^I believe it. Didn't 1180 Peachtree's tenants all relocate from existing towers that were perfectly OK?

Yeah, 191 Peachtree, which was arguably the city's premier office tower and is about twice the size of 1180 Peachtree, was occupied by two very large law firms and Wachovia Bank.  Their relocation to Midtown was a tremendous boost to Midtown, but an equally serious blow to Downtown.

[Martinman]

Post @ Allen Plaza

[ironchapman]

It's great to see things shaping up down there like they have. So many good building plans. I can't wait to see them once they're built!

[krazeeboi]

Andrea, on Oct 15 2006, 03:36 PM, said:

Yeah, 191 Peachtree, which was arguably the city's premier office tower and is about twice the size of 1180 Peachtree, was occupied by two very large law firms and Wachovia Bank.  Their relocation to Midtown was a tremendous boost to Midtown, but an equally serious blow to Downtown.

So will Allen Plaza have more new tenants than "shuffling" tenants?

[AubieTurtle]

krazeeboi, on Oct 19 2006, 04:37 AM, said:

So will Allen Plaza have more new tenants than "shuffling" tenants?

It's a trickle down thing.  The top businesses in the city will always have the nicest and news buildings.  The old buildings they left behind will be filled in by other less important/successful businesses.  Hopefully that means some of those companies that rent from anonymous business parks in the suburbs will jump at a chance to locate intown with a lower rent than use to be possible.  

But really, unless a new business suddenly comes into being, it's all shuffling, it's just a matter of how big of an area do you look at before you no longer consider it a shuffle but rather new business.  Obviously someone relocating an office from Chicago wouldn't be considered shuffling on an Atlanta scale but it would be from a national scale.  But what about a company from the Perimeter area or Woodstock?  Is that shuffling or new business?

There is also some space taken up by organizations needing more space.  I think that's the case with the Amercian Cancer Society.

[Andrea]

There was an interesting article in the Daily Report the other day about why law firms decide to locate inside or outside the Perimeter.  A number of factors were considered, and interestingly enough cost didn't seem to be that high on the list, since suburban rents aren't really that much different.  It seemed to me they were saying that the biggest consideration was convenience, not only for laywers but for staff as well.

Another issue they mentioned was prestige.  It used to be that the city's most prestigious firms *had* to be near Five Points -- even Peachtree Center was considered too far north.  (Y'all may have seen the comment I posted some time ago by the senior partner in a law firm who was told his firm would go out of business if they ventured as "far out" as Peachtree Center).  In the past 15-20 years, the epicenter for the largest firms has shifted to Midtown, which has accounted for a large part of the office growth there.  

However, the largest firms still represent a relatively small percentage of the legal industry, and there are a lot of people who are satisfied with going elsewhere.  Buckhead has a lot of mid-sized firms, as do the Perimeter and Galleria areas.  

I think it would help the downtown office market if there was more affordable housing nearby, including neighborhoods where people felt good about raising children.  The big dogs will probably continue to live in Buckhead, but it takes a huge staff to keep these businesses going.

[krazeeboi]

Is it just me, or is Atlanta starting to develop an architectural style all its own, which really emphasizes glass (the Allen Plaza buildings, 1180 Peachtree, etc.)?

[Andrea]

krazeeboi, on Oct 19 2006, 04:58 PM, said:

Is it just me, or is Atlanta starting to develop an architectural style all its own, which really emphasizes glass (the Allen Plaza buildings, 1180 Peachtree, etc.)?

Well, we've had a lot of glass buildings in Atlanta for a long time -- this one goes back about 35 years.  But I think they are everywhere.

[krazeeboi]

I actually mean glass that is more or less transparent. I'm aware of the older buildings that emphasize glass, but the glass in those buildings tend to be more dark and opaque. I think maybe it's because I'm seeing the big, wide, transparent panes that are prevalent in 1180 Peachtree and the Southern Power building, and possibly the other Allen Plaza buildings (the W seems like it will have the same style). Charlotte has an abundance of modern architecture, but the buildings don't seem to emphasize the glass as much as the newer buildings I've seen in Atlanta. The condo towers popping up seem to do that though.

[AubieTurtle]

Andrea, on Oct 19 2006, 12:07 PM, said:

There was an interesting article in the Daily Report the other day about why law firms decide to locate inside or outside the Perimeter.  A number of factors were considered, and interestingly enough cost didn't seem to be that high on the list, since suburban rents aren't really that much different.  It seemed to me they were saying that the biggest consideration was convenience, not only for laywers but for staff as well.

Another issue they mentioned was prestige.  It used to be that the city's most prestigious firms *had* to be near Five Points -- even Peachtree Center was considered too far north.  (Y'all may have seen the comment I posted some time ago by the senior partner in a law firm who was told his firm would go out of business if they ventured as "far out" as Peachtree Center).  In the past 15-20 years, the epicenter for the largest firms has shifted to Midtown, which has accounted for a large part of the office growth there.  

However, the largest firms still represent a relatively small percentage of the legal industry, and there are a lot of people who are satisfied with going elsewhere.  Buckhead has a lot of mid-sized firms, as do the Perimeter and Galleria areas.  

I think it would help the downtown office market if there was more affordable housing nearby, including neighborhoods where people felt good about raising children.  The big dogs will probably continue to live in Buckhead, but it takes a huge staff to keep these businesses going.

It sounds like the article is pretty accurate. Many people make the mistake of thinking "LA Law" when they think of lawyers.  While the large firms get all of the attention in the public eye, the fact of the matter is that they make up only a small percentage of the overall population of attorneys.  Though I'm sure they wouldn't want to hear this, law firms are like hair salons... they need to be near their clients or they won't get much business.  Now, you have a few superstar stylists that change hundreds of dollars for a haircut and pull in business from all over the metro but for the most part, it is Great Clips, SuperCuts, etc who get 95% of the business.  Most of what attorneys do isn't fighting high profile cases in court, it's boring mundane things like handing wills, writing up lease agreements, real estate closings for tract homes, etc.  A person in Cumming isn't going to travel downtown/midtown for that.  They're going to go to the guy down the street.  Same with a real estate developer in Gwinnett that needs to file papers in Lawrenceville at the county courthouse.  He's going to go with the local lawyer.  Now, a huge company like Home Depot or UPS, they're going to travel intown to the high prices, high skilled attorneys but there are very few Home Depots but millions of Bob and Sue Smiths looking for a nearby and low cost divorice attorney.

It does take large staffs to keep the big firms going but they tend to pay very well and have great benefits.  The average suburbanite has shown time and time again that it's all about the money so the big firms don't have to recruite staff from intown, they can pull from all over the metro because of the great compensation offered.  The partners of these firms aren't going to increase their own commute to make things easier on the staff when the staff are already getting money showered all over them.   Once you make it to a certain income level, each dollar becomes less and less important while improving the quality of life becomes more important.  Don't expect to see many medium or any large sized firms move further out than a couple of miles from the perimeter.  I have plenty of coworkers that have horrible commutes and they talk about how wonderful it would be to work near home but they never switch jobs.  There are plenty of jobs out there close to their homes but they still choose to come intown.  Why?  Because they can't get compensation anywhere near what they're getting at a big intown law firm.

[Lady Celeste]

Is the Post development in Allen Plaza going to be a rental or purchase development. I really think that a nice highrise rental development in that area is overdue. It would give people a little squimish about intown living a chance to sample the lifestyle. If they like it, they can purchase one of the many condos either for sale or under construction in the area.

[AubieTurtle]

Lady Celeste, on Oct 21 2006, 11:26 PM, said:

Is the Post development in Allen Plaza going to be a rental or purchase development. I really think that a nice highrise rental development in that area is overdue. It would give people a little squimish about intown living a chance to sample the lifestyle. If they like it, they can purchase one of the many condos either for sale or under construction in the area.

I think the smaller tower is going to be apartments while the larger tower will be a mix of condos and hotel space.

[Lady Celeste]

That's good to know because the center city seems to have a low amount of quality rental unit.l

[AubieTurtle]

The rental supply should make a rebound.  For the past couple of years with interest rates so low, most people have chosen to buy instead of rent.  Since this happened to coincide with the intown residential boom, you got mostly condos instead of apartments.  Plus there were lots of condo conversions since the owners of the complexes were having trouble renting the units, conversion allowed them to cash out.

As rates go back up, more people who want to live in the city will decide to rent and that will create the required demand.  It's probably a good thing for it to happen soon because many of these condo developments are experiencing significant friction between those in owner-occupied units and those that are being rented out.  New apartments will hopefully take some of the rental demand out of the condo buildings and refocus it into the rental buildings.

[sunshine]

How is the prices of condo in downtown Atlanta? I know houses are cheap up there in the suburb.