Just weeks after losing one prized lease deal, John Dewberry’s Campanile building in Midtown signed another: SunTrust Banks Inc.
Next April, the Georgia division of the Atlanta-based bank will relocate 350 employees to the former BellSouth headquarters building in Midtown from 25 Park Place downtown.
The bank will take five of the lower floors of the 21-story Campanile, bringing the building to 50 percent leased. The deal includes signage on the lower portion of the building at 1155 Peachtree St.
Dewberry bought it last year out of distress with a loan from Georgia’s Own Credit Union, also a building tenant. They paid $36 million for what then was a mostly vacant but ritzy building BellSouth had built with all the trimmings of a headquarters.
For Dewberry, the SunTrust deal is great news after law firm Morris, Manning & Martin cancelled its decision to move there, deciding to stay in Buckhead.
For SunTrust, the move is part of a major real estate realignment that will affect 1,250 employees here. About five years ago, the bank sold its 25 Park Place tower to Georgia State University. The bank plans to move 500 employees to the Portman-designed SunTrust Plaza complex at 303 Peachtree St. and 400 employees in the SunTrust Robinson Humphrey investment banking unit out of SunTrust Plaza and into Atlanta Financial Center in Buckhead. After all the moves, SunTrust will employ about 5,000 in downtown and Midtown and another 950 in Buckhead.
E. Jenner Wood III, chairman, president and CEO of SunTrust Bank Atlanta, said in a statement said the Campanile location, "across the street from an existing SunTrust branch at Peachtree and 14th streets, will give us even higher visibility on this premier corner in Midtown.”
Ridr Knowlton, a partner at Dewberry Capital, said Campanile’s top floors remain available for another headquarters or large tenant. Renovations, which include removing the pyramid shape atop the building, should be done by 2012 when he hopes to face "improving market conditions."
Dewberry Capital is spending millions of dollars to replace the elevators, electrical and lighting systems. It hired Harmon Inc., the company that replaced the windows in the downtown Westin after it was struck by a tornado, to replace all the Campanile's windows.
Dewberry also is working on a plan to use the broad footprint around the building for retail or other uses. Dewberry has been involved with staging the food trucks at Midtown and 10th Street, where Dewberry owns more land.
Kirk Diamond of Carter and Associates, who represented SunTrust in the deal, said the bank searched for about nine months before deciding on the Campanile.
“That location of 14th and Peacthree is as ‘Main and Main’ as anything I can think of," he said.
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