AJC: Atlanta office space remains hard to fill

[marmar]

By Russell Grantham
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


When the real estate markets crashed in Dallas, Houston and other then-booming Texas cities two decades ago, the event helped ignite a financial meltdown and federal bailout that would look very familiar these days.

It also spawned a new term that could be applied locally: “see-through buildings.” Financed by banks and thrifts that later failed, the new skyscrapers and other buildings that flooded the Texas market had so few occupants that many looked practically transparent to passers-by.

Although granite and other materials often have supplanted those glass towers of the 1980s and 1990s and perhaps obscured their “see-through” aspect, many of Atlanta’s offices, retail centers and condominium and townhouse projects are similarly vacant.

While experts say there aren’t overall figures for total vacant buildings in metro Atlanta, available figures show the market has been hit hard.

More than 22 percent of finished office space in the Atlanta market was vacant in the second quarter, higher than in more than two-thirds of the other major U.S. markets surveyed by commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. Likewise, Atlanta’s retail space showed a 16.6 percent vacancy rate in the second quarter versus the national average of 12.6 percent, according to National Association of Realtors estimates. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ajc.com/business/atlanta-office-space-remains-582569.html

[Submariner]

1. I worked there ONCE

Atlanta was so effing HOT HOT HOT it was almost unbearable to walk out of the Peachtree area hotel and business towers to go a block or two for lunch. Maybe the heat has something to do with business coming back.

[marmar]

2. I think the crappy economy probably has more to do with it.

nt

[missheidi]

3. And the crime rate...

and the declining public transportation. True, it's very hot here.