ATLANTA—Office market activity in Atlanta took a step back to start the year, posting 70,950 square feet of negative absorption. That's according to CBRE's Atlanta Research team.

The bright spot was Downtown and Buckhead office submarkets. These neighborhoods saw the greatest amount of absorption, posting 94,737 square feet and 70,557 square feet of office space respectively. But class A properties countered the growth with negative 264,346 square feet, respectively.

Due to several large office tenants vacating speculative space to move into owner-occupied space, Atlanta experienced negative absorption levels, pushing vacancy rates to 16.9%. Strong office leasing and rising rents in the first quarter of 2017 resulted in more than 1.9 million square feet of office leasing activity, with class A representing 1.3 million of the space.