9-Block Blockbuster: Hal Barry has a bold plan to expand downtown's Allen Plaza

11/3/2006
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Jill Lerner Staff writer
Website: http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/11/06/story1.html

One of Atlanta's top developers is upping the ante in its bet on downtown's resurgence.

Barry Real Estate Companies Inc., which is developing the $1 billion landmark Allen Plaza northeast of Centennial Olympic Park, plans to build a new neighborhood within downtown that will feature not just three major office buildings (including the tallest tower to be built in downtown in more than a decade) and the luxe W Hotel, but up to 3,000 residential units, oversized public art and pocket parks as well as wide pedestrian boulevards lined with multi-level retailers, trendy restaurants and sidewalk cafés.

A hallmark element of the new district will be a gigantic, 35 foot by 100 foot electronic billboard that will hang between the W and the new Ernst & Young LLP building at 55 Allen Plaza, and that will be seen by as many as 450,000 cars along the Downtown Connector each day.

In interviews with Atlanta Business Chronicle, Barry Chairman Hal Barry and President Chris Schoen detailed their extensive plans for the huge project -- which, when complete, is likely to encompass nine city blocks.

According to Barry, Allen Plaza, named for former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., is the largest contiguous tract of land being developed in the downtown of any major American city.

The news of Barry's vision comes on the heels of The Coca-Cola Co.'s Oct. 23 announcement it will donate a nearby tract of land adjacent to the new World of Coca-Cola for a museum dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement.

The unveiling of Barry Real Estate's plans -- after years of quietly assembling the requisite land for Allen Plaza -- also coincides with unprecedented investment downtown over the last 12 months. Large buildings that have changed, or soon will change, hands include One Ninety One Peachtree Tower, The Ritz-Carlton Atlanta and Peachtree Center -- even though the downtown office vacancy rate, at 27 percent, is the highest it's been in a decade. (That number is skewed by vacancies at the largely empty, 1.2 million-square-foot One Ninety One building.)

"We happen to be at the right place at the right time and assembled some of the best land we see anywhere," said Barry.

The project, which originated as a single-building plan to develop a new headquarters for Southern Co., today encompasses five blocks, and the developer either has a stake in, or has under contract, another four parcels south of the current development.

The Allen Plaza district will encompass both a corporate address, a retail district and residential section.

Along with the 12-story, 265,000-square-foot Southern Co. building, 30 Allen Plaza, which is fully leased (and recently was sold, see related story on Page 37A), the corporate component includes the 16-story, 360,000-square-foot Ernst & Young building, 55 Allen Plaza, which is just over 40 percent leased to the accounting firm.

It also includes the super-luxe, 28-story W Hotel, which will have 237 hotel rooms and 76 high-end condos and amenities including a pool overlooking the skyline, and which developers are working to make the "highest-quality" W to date, Schoen said.

Additionally, plans call for a third tower, 50 Allen Plaza, which will be designed by famed architect Jon Pickard (designer of Midtown's new 1180 Peachtree building, home to law firm King & Spalding LLP) and which will be the tallest office building constructed downtown in more than a decade. The building, projected to be anywhere from 34 to 48 stories, will begin once a lead tenant is signed and will be between 600,000 and 1 million square feet.

Like the other two towers, that building -- which will have prime visibility on the connector -- will offer signage rights.

On the residential side, Barry Real Estate and Post Properties Inc. (NYSE: PPS) are teaming up to build Post at Allen Plaza, which will include 330 apartments, 150 condos and a 200-room suite hotel across from the new World of Coke. Construction will begin in the first half of next year. That project, along with condominium developer Novare Group Inc.'s TWELVE Centennial Park hotel and condo project, and the residences in the W, will bring the district to as many as 3,000 homes.

If Ivan Allen Boulevard is the corporate heart of the project, Spring Street will be its retail corridor and Simpson Street is being positioned as its neighborhood gathering spot.

Plans for Spring Street call for multi-story urban retailers such as booksellers, clothing companies, home-decor shops and a grocery store. The vision for Simpson Street includes smaller-scale neighborhood cafés and unique shops.

Public artwork and parks will be positioned throughout the project.

Barry Real Estate officials say their vision is based on population projections that have 100,000 people moving to Atlanta each year, for the next five to eight years, many of them young professionals and empty nesters who increasingly are seeking homes in the urban core.



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