Every high-rise that leaves its mark on Atlanta’s skyline is celebrated when its construction reaches its tallest point.
But few buildings have the potential to be the last new tower of their type for years to come.
A 25-story tower within Portman Holdings’ Spring Quarter project topped out construction this week and is poised to add 530,000 square feet of offices to Midtown. Not only will that be the most new workspace to join Atlanta’s office market this year, it’s a likely capstone to several years of rapid office development that has transformed Midtown into the city’s premier market for high-end workplaces.
Credit: Courtesy Portman Holdings
Credit: Courtesy Portman Holdings
Named 1020 Spring after its street address, the building is on track to open in October. It isn’t expected to have any peers of its size for several years as employers and developers continue to grapple with the office’s role in a post-pandemic world.
“This is the largest office building that will deliver this year in the city of Atlanta,” said Portman Managing Director Travis Garland. “And I would say (it’ll remain the largest) maybe for the next seven to 10 years.”
It’s been more than four years since the onset of COVID-19 ushered in the work-from-home/hybrid era. White collar workers were given new flexibility to clock in from outside a shared workplace, and office markets across the country — including Atlanta’s — have struggled to find their footing after the upheaval.
While more companies are setting return-to-office policies, the amount of available office space in metro Atlanta has set record after record, culminating in 32.4% of all office square footage being on the market for rent at the end of March, according to data from real estate services firm CBRE. Developers and their financers have taken notice with many canceling, delaying or paring back their new office construction projects due to uncertain demand going forward.
About 1.9 million square feet of new office space is currently in the construction pipeline, according to CBRE, while that figure was more than 6 million square feet three years ago. Portman’s 1020 Spring represents more than a fourth of that forthcoming workspace.
Garland said the slowdown in new office projects will bolster the leasing opportunities for 1020 Spring because employers looking for the latest and greatest workplace offerings will have fewer options.
“As we look forward, I think it’s several years across many cities where you’re going to have a fairly significant gap of office deliveries,” he said. “... From a competition perspective of like product, there won’t be a lot of it.”
Making Midtown
Midtown’s roster of glitzy office towers bearing the logos of Fortune 500 companies is mostly a new creation.
From 2018 to early 2024, the urban neighborhood has added 46 buildings to its domain with another 20 either being proposed or beginning construction, according to the Midtown Alliance, an influential civic and business group. Those delivered buildings, which are a mix of offices, apartments, condos and hotels, have a combined estimated value of $8.4 billion.
The building diversity, alongside the opulence of its trophy office towers, have helped insulate Midtown from wider economic headwinds that have disrupted other major cities, Mayor Andre Dickens said.
“The Midtown that we see today is far from a monoculture of office buildings that we see in other cities,” he said March 5 during the Midtown Alliance’s annual meeting.
While getting new office projects off the ground has been a challenge, developers say it’s easier to get capital and financial backing for other types of uses, which is why there’s still construction cranes dotting Midtown’s street grid.
This includes New York-based Rockefeller Group’s 60-story mixed-use tower at 1072 West Peachtree Street, which is slated to become the city’s fifth tallest building. Even so, the skyscraper will only have 224,000 square feet of offices — less than half the space of 1020 Spring.
Hospitality and history
While Portman’s office building may not have many new office neighbors, the neighbors it will have are unlike any others in the city.
The Spring Quarter project is the redevelopment of the 4-acre property surrounding the H.M. Patterson & Son’s Spring Hill Chapel, a historic landmark that once held funerals for numerous famous Atlantans, including Margaret Mitchell, and mayors Ivan Allen and William Hartsfield.
The funeral home, which will be transformed into an event space and “morning-to-night” restaurant destination by late 2025, lies in the shadow of 1020 Spring and the Sora at Spring Quarter apartment building, which Portman finished last year. Consisting of 370 market-rate apartments, the building is more than 70% leased.
Pepper Boxing, a cardio-based fitness concept, will open a location on Sora’s ground floor later this month, while 1020 Spring will house two future Japanese eateries from Fuyuhiko Ito, former executive chef of Umi.
In the fight to attract tenants, Garland said Portman is trying to up its game with top-of-the-line amenities.
Credit: Courtesy Portman Holdings
Credit: Courtesy Portman Holdings
The offices will boast a hotel-like lobby, a private rooftop terrace and 10-foot panoramic windows, a first-of-its-kind feature in Atlanta. The Sora apartments similarly are decked out with modern luxuries, including an infrared sauna, a climbing wall and a golf simulator.
Spring Quarter was initially going to include a hotel as a third tower, but that has been shelved for now. Fulton County property records show Portman paid nearly $14.5 million to acquire two adjacent parcels in June 2022, which expands the hotel site to 0.8 acres. Garland said that’s enough space to provide for other development options, such as another apartment tower.
“The economic development activity is not what it was, but it’s coming back,” he said.
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