Centennial Yards Breaks Ground in Atlanta

Ground has been broken on one of the largest CBD developments in the US, the 50-acre, 8M SF, $5B Centennial Yards mixed-use projects in downtown Atlanta.

The commencement of the mammoth project was announced by the developer, Centennial Yards Co. Centennial Yards is a partnership between the CIM Group and a group led by Tony Ressler, owner of the Atlanta Hawks NBA franchise.

Upon its completion, Centennial Yards will include 4M SF of office, retail and hotel space and 4M SF of residential buildings.

The first phase of the project will consist of a pair of 18-story buildings—a full service boutique hotel to be called Anthem and a residential tower that will be in proximity to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena.

The two towers, designed by Atlanta-based architects Goode Van Slake Architects and TVS Architecture + Design, a scheduled to open in 2025.

According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the office component of the Centennial Yards development will include a triple tower topping out at 28 stories, encompassing 520K SF. The tower will include 19K SF of amenities and 22K SF of terraces. The roof will feature landscaping.

The office tower will be built on the site of the newspaper’s former printing plant between Fairlie and Spring streets.

Building the residential and hospitality component of Centennial Yards before the office component will enable the partners to avoid a glut of available office space in the Atlanta market, which had 2.1M SF of deliveries while another 3.2M SF is under construction at a time when the office vacancy rate has hit 17%, according to Colliers’ Q3 market report.

“The increase in vacancy is largely due to the record level of deliveries that occurred this quarter. These large block Class A buildings delivered mostly vacant with move ins scheduled over the next few quarters,” Colliers’ report said.

“As a result of these deliveries and the current construction pipeline, Atlanta may continue to struggle with vacancy as landlords compete for tenants,” the report said.

On the brighter side, the Colliers’ report noted that some of the new deliveries, including One Phipps Plaza, Fourth Ward, and Midtown Union have anchor tenants scheduled to move in over the next two quarters

The Atlanta office market recorded positive net absorption of 594K SF in Q3, with year-to-date absorption totaling 1.3M SF,