New office building DT Atlanta

[Guest donaltopablo]

Southern Co. to take new downtown tower

By WALTER WOODS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta's Southern Co. will vacate the offices it has occupied since 1995 for a new, prominent office complex to be built overlooking the Downtown Connector and a few blocks from Centennial Olympic Park.

Southern will move its headquarters and about 400 employees out of the 270 Peachtree building, known as Southern Company Center, by early 2006, said Chris Schoen, president of Barry Real Estate Cos., the new building's developer.

Southern's new, 14-story home office will rise only a few blocks north, on seven acres of parking lots on Williams and Alexander streets near the Civic Center MARTA station.

Barry will develop the new Southern building on what previous developers called Centennial Hill.

The site is close to the northeast corner of Centennial Olympic Park and a few blocks down Alexander Street from the Georgia Aquarium, coming in 2005, and World of Coca-Cola, coming in 2006.

Residential developer Novare Group, which built the Metropolis condominiums in Midtown, among other projects, will build a complex with more than 1,000 residential units next to the new Southern headquarters.