First look: Star Metals Offices wants to take amenities to next level in West Midtown

By the sheer amount of construction cranes, the once lonely, postindustrial corridor that is Howell Mill Road looks like a scene from Downtown Dubai at the moment, more or less.

At the center of that activity is a distinctive office project that developers say salutes the district’s past while nodding to the future.

Star Metals Offices is well underway at 1055 Howell Mill Road, with a goal of opening by the end of 2020 and introducing eye-catching architecture to the area, via a series of cantilevers and lush exterior spaces climbing 14 stories.

To lend an idea of the building’s aesthetics, development officials with The Allen Morris Company shared renderings with Curbed Atlanta this week of Star Metals Offices’s planned amenities level exteriors and interior and the lobby.

The spaces, designed by the local Square Feet Studio firm, are meant to be “iconic but approachable, incorporating industrial elements representative of the Westside’s history, such as poured concrete and steel, but softened with luxurious fabrics, leather and woods, all to create a timeless effect,” reads an official description.

Higher in the Oppenheim Architecture-designed building will be a 10,000-square-foot amenity level on the seventh floor with an aesthetic that’s anything but cold.

It’ll feature an outdoor terrace for tenant collaborations and special events (where the bar and catering kitchen come in), plus a conference room, boardroom, and covered outdoor seating, per officials.

Overall, the Class A, LEED-certified structure will count 260,000 square feet, to include 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurants.

Star Metals Offices has signed an anchor tenant in coworking company Spaces, which will claim the building’s seventh and eighth floors and a ground-floor reception area fronting Howell Mill.

W.A. Spencer Morris, Allen Morris Company’s executive vice president, told Curbed the developer is in the process of finalizing leases with other office tenants right now.

Ditto for the rooftop restaurant and bar component, which is expected to capitalize on panoramic views that stretch from downtown to Buckhead.

“We’re currently in discussions with a handful of best-in-class, chef-driven operators for the rooftop,” Morris wrote in an email, “but because of the ongoing negotiations, [we] cannot discuss any details.”

All told, Star Metals Atlanta is redeveloping almost 5 acres on either side of Howell Mill. Across the street from the offices, a luxury rental community is taking shape that’s expected to deliver 409 apartments in July 2020.

Meanwhile, alongside the office building, the 166-room Star Metals Hotel is now expected to break ground next year, officials said.

The new district joins a groundswell of development activity along the Howell Mill Road corridor and in surrounding blocks.

Other notable additions include Gateway Ventures and Atlantic Capital Properties’s 8West, where Marietta Street and Howell Mill converge; the glassy, 20-story condo venture 788 that’s rising as the district’s tallest structure now; and The Interlock, which is expected to entail 200,000 square feet of loft office space, upwards of 100,000 square feet of retail, and a 145-key Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel where Howell Mill meets 14th Street.

Boom times, indeed.