California developer planning innovative office for 52-acre mixed-use project

Credit: Southwest Value Partners

Credit: Southwest Value Partners

The property at 5555 Windward Parkway has been home to Hewlett Packard Enterprise since 1987. The California developer plans to renovate 517,000 of existing office building and add 808,000 square feet of new office space in multiple buildings.

Southwest Value Partners built Nashville Yards on 18 acres in that city’s downtown district and has completed developments in Texas, Arizona, California as well as Hilton Head, S.C.

The Continuum project has been recommended for approval by the Planning Commission and City Council will consider rezoning for mixed-use on Monday during a regular meeting.

The site is located north of closely linked Avalon and Alpharetta City Center mixed-use districts and North Point where another developer is proposing a complete transformation of 83 acres of mall property into live, work, play.

During the Oct. 6 Planning Commission meeting, Southwest Value Partners representatives said Continuum would be a modern neighborhood and will help to increase office occupancy in the surrounding area.

Considering the trend of employees working remotely, Continuum office space will not resemble pre-pandemic work life, Joe Bucher, Southwest Value Partners’ director of Strategic Design, told the Planning Commission.

“We are focused on companies and the creation of office space that is (a) cultural centerpiece for a company and not a place of work,” he said during the meeting.

Bucher said offices now are not for “putting butts in seats” but are a “place for the company to gather employees together.”

Emil Malizia Ph.d, who researched the changing uses of office buildings for NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association, said many employers believe workers will eventually begin to work in the office for more than just a couple of days per week.

“I think everybody agrees we’re not going back to five days at the office commuting on the front and back end of that,” Malizia said, “But there’s an argument that working remotely cannot translate the company culture, they cannot integrate workers successfully at a distance.”

A McKinsey & Company survey on the flexibility of U.S. workplaces found only 35% of respondents said they can work from home. The June article on the study added that “given workers’ desire for flexibility, employers may have to explore ways to offer the flexibility employees want to compete for talent effectively.”

As a sign of changing times, SWVP said employers such as Amazon have started allowing staff to bring their dogs to work and one of the Continuum’s dog parks would likely be located near the office buildings.