Central Perimeter and North Central took a serious beating, placing "huge amounts of vacant space back on the market" near the middle of 2001, and suffered even greater losses after Sept. 11, Hopkins says.

The softening conditions bode well for tenants in the market for office space, though. "Central Perimeter and North Central are probably the best places to find a bargain for space in metro Atlanta," Hopkins tells GlobeSt.com.

Although Grubb & Ellis and other brokerage houses did not have up-to-date rental rates available, Hopkins says average rental rates appear to be stabilizing.

The reason? "The larger landlords are not going to go down any further than they already have," he says. "REITs that are active in the city and owners of some of the larger buildings that have space available just can't go down (in price) any further."

Atlanta-based Richard Bowers & Co. put the average asking class A rent at $21 per sf at year end 2001.

Sewer moratoriums in effect across the city have added to the office sector's woes. "These moratoriums that are going on are preventing any new development from taking place," Hopkins tells GlobeSt. "Everybody is suffering."

Evidence of how businesses in the area are suffering can be seen in the most recent sublease figures. According to locally based Dorey Market Analysis Group, the amount of sublease space available in metro Atlanta totals nearly 6.82 million sf.

Christopher Shaner, a market analyst for Dorey's tells GlobeSt.com that class A sublease space accounts for the majority of turnovers--4.86 million sf. Subleases in B buildings total about 1.95 million sf.

"The dot-com fallout really hit Atlanta hard, resulting in these high vacancies and large blocks of sublease space," Hopkins says.Despite this gloomy analysis, he believes conditions will improve in the near future.

"We've seen business activity pick up, not deals being done, but there's more activity going on," Hopkins says, referring to deals starting to pass across the desks of his colleagues.

"More people are starting the process of doing real estate transactions. The wheels are kind of starting to spin," he says. "As for a recovery, we're hoping it's not going to be next year, but it may very well be."