The leading submarket this past quarter was NE Expressway-North in the I-85 north corridor, near the suburb of Duluth, according to Richard Bowers. It had a little over 111,000 square feet of positive absorption in the first quarter, because a major tenant, NCR Corp., which makes ATMs, self-service kiosks and check-out terminals, moved its headquarters from Dayton, Ohio to the Satellite Place 700 building in the Satellite Place Office Park in Duluth. The 10-year-lease was for 120,000 square feet in the six story building.

"We are hoping that NCR moving into the Satellite Place Office Park will be a draw for other tenants," says Majors. The fact that, in the first quarter, the suburban market outperformed the urban market, in terms of absorption, can be attributed to the NCR move, he says.

The submarket with the highest occupancy rate in first quarter 2010, according to Richard Bowers research, was Northeast Expressway-South with an occupancy rate of 88.59%. However, it only had 12,945 square feet of absorption in the first quarter of 2010.

In the first quarter 2010, 1,640,626 square feet were delivered in three urban towers: Phipps Tower and 3630 Peachtree in the Buckhead/Lenox submarket, and 1075 Peachtree in Midtown. The delivery of all this space caused the occupancy in Buckhead/Lenox to drop to about 71%, the lowest occupancy rate of all the submarkets, according to Richard Bowers research.

The three buildings which opened in the first quarter are the last major projects being developed and Majors does not expect any new office development to begin construction until 2015 or possibly later. That is because 26 million square feet are currently available in the Atlanta market, excluding subleases. The largest amount of vacant space is in the Buckhead/Lenox submarket with 4.4 million square feet available. But four other submarkets have over three million square feet available.

There was 204,237 square feet of negative absorption in first quarter 2010 in Atlanta's urban markets, most of which was attributable to the Buckhead/Lenox submarket, where there was 197,477 square feet of negative absorption.