ATLANTA—The momentum in Atlanta's office market is building. After years of steady recovery, the office vacancy sits at 17.8%. All told, the gains led to a 140 basis point decrease in vacancy from 2013 year-end, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Atlanta's office market posted 9.1 million square feet of new leasing activity in 2014. That represents a 3.5% increase from 2013 and marks the strongest annual leasing activity the market has seen since 2008.

“In 2014, clear signs of an impending improvement have been appearing around the entire region,” says Ken Ashley, an executive director with CushWake's Tenant Advisory Group. “Property sales prices are up, landlords are reducing concessions and even raising lease rates, and investors are injecting new equity into property deals. Just as importantly, building owners have largely dealt with debt that turned bad in the wake of the financial crisis.”