And that's precisely why Sembler Co. of St. Petersburg, FL and Stephen D. Bell & Co. of Greensboro, NC plan to begin demolition in April of two former BellSouth office towers totaling 600,000 sf on Perimeter Center Parkway. In place of the towers, the developers plan to erect Perimeter Place, a $150-million, 1.1-million-sf mini-city encompassing retail, restaurants and residences on 42 acres at Perimeter Center Parkway. The developers revealed the plans after DeKalb County approved their rezoning applications.

The DeKalb County site is near the 33-year-old, 1.5-million-sf, 200-store Perimeter Mall located in the most affluent market in Atlanta where the average household income is $120,000, according to the mall's most-recent website data. The mall and Perimeter Place will be drawing from a trade area whose estimated population is 1.1 million.

The developers' plans include a 27-story condominium community and a six-story apartment building. Lincoln Property Co. is bidding on the apartment project's construction. The apartments will be built atop restaurants, boutiques and other shops. Sembler/Bell plan to retain a separate developer for the condo venture, brokers following the city's most ambitious mixed-use undertaking so far this year tell GlobeSt.com. The first phase of Perimeter Place is tentatively scheduled to open in fall 2005.