Observers have long noted that downtown's Fairlie-Poplar Historic District and surrounding environs have great "real city" bones — that is, plenty of densely situated buildings with nearby transit access. A number of recent real estate transactions would suggest the business community is taking notice. The latest positive news: Downtown business boosters Central Atlanta Progress will be relocating their offices to the heart of Fairlie-Popular, taking the top floor of a well-maintained 1907 building at 84 Walton St. The move means CAP will be vacating Edgewood Avenue offices the agency has occupied for 25 years.
CAP president A. J. Robinson told the Saporta Report the move represents an opportunity to practice what CAP preaches — promoting adaptive reuse — while helping to revitalize downtown at a key point between Woodruff and Centennial Olympic parks. The Walton Street location was actually CAP's second choice, possibly signaling that leasing in the area is getting, uh, competitive?
Interestingly, Robinson told the website that CAP had submitted a bid to buy the historic Olympia building near Five Points, but they were significantly outbid by a company called CSH-23 Peachtree LLC, which scooped up the mostly empty, pie-shaped structure for $2.2 million last fall.
Speaking of which, the Olympia is slated to be revitalized with the addition of an urban Walgreens Pharmacy that will echo the building's former art deco style. Around the corner, the City of Atlanta is reportedly in the early stages of unloading the beleaguered albatross that is Underground Atlanta to private investors.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Georgia State University is building a new College of Law, a modernistic 200,000 square-foot structure to rise about a block from Woodruff Park. And if another investor's plans are realized, Atlanta's oldest skyscraper — the 11-story Flatiron Building — could be refashioned into a 36,000 square-foot incubator for entrepreneurs by the end of 2014. That jewel is currently about three-fourths vacant.
· CAP moving to Fairlie-Poplar's 84 Walton building [Saporta Report]
· Eureka! Plans For Olympia 'To Match Historical Precedent'?!? [Curbed]
Loading comments...