The multi-million-dollar project would be one of the most challenging in recent city redevelopment annals, brokers following various proposals for the property tell GlobeSt.com. Sam Himmelrich of Baltimore and Simeon Bruner, a principal in the Cambridge, MA-based Bruner/Cott firm are showing interest in becoming active players in the project, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Himmelrich's credentials include retrofitting and leasing a former Montgomery Ward warehouse as an office structure near Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Area brokers familiar with Himmelrich's track record tell GlobeSt.com he worked closely on the Montgomery Ward project with former Baltimore planning commissioner Charles Graves III who relocated to Atlanta in 2002 to assume a similar position with Mayor Franklin's administration.
Bruner converted a former Sears warehouse near Boston's Fenway Park into Landmark Center, a $100-million office and retail complex. The architect is also negotiating to do a similar job in Minneapolis, retail brokers following the redevelopment industry tell GlobeSt.com.
The two local teams are headed by Liburn, GA developer Emory Morsberger and Stephen Macauley. Morsberger is credited with being among the first to envision turning the City Hall East structure into a mix of retail shops and entertainment attractions, along with the development of 800 loft residences. Morsberger is partnering with McKenna, Long & Aldridge, an Atlanta law firm that has acted as an adviser on several local projects; urban planner Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh & Associates; former Atlanta planning commissioner Leon Eplan; and Angelo Fuster, an experienced adviser on City Hall projects.
Macauley's Phoenix Team also includes some of Atlanta's biggest name developers and planners. Among them are Jerome Russell, president, HJ Russell & Co.; Mark Randall, vice president, Wood Partners; Ronald Stang, an architect at Stevens & Wilkinson Stang & Newdow; residential developer James Cowart and partner George Berkow; William Sullivan and Robert Jackson of Birmingham, AL-based Colonial Properties Trust; and Robert Brown Jr., president, RL Brown & Associates, architects, Decatur, GA.
The city has owned the City Hall East building since 1991 when it bought the property for $12 million. The Atlanta Urban Design Commission says the structure was originally built along Ponce de Leon Avenue in 1926; expanded in 1929; and added new sections in 1946 and 1971.
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