Invesco to Anchor 606 KSF Upcoming Atlanta Development

Rendering of Midtown Union. Image courtesy of MetLife Investment Management

MetLife Investment Management and Granite Properties have signed Invesco in a leasing deal to anchor the 606,000-square-foot Class A office component of its upcoming Midtown Union mixed-use development. The investment firm will occupy 300,000 square feet of the project, according to Bisnow Atlanta.

While the development team has not yet broken ground on the 26-story project’s site at 1295 Spring St., the first phase is estimated to be delivered by mid-2022. Upon completion, the overall Midtown Union project will encompass 8.5 acres, with a 250-key hotel and an estimated 87,000 square feet of retail space. Plans also call for a multifamily component of 350 units and a parking structure with 1,900 spaces.

MetLife and Granite enlisted Cooper Carry to design the office tower to meet LEED certification standards, with Newcomb & Boyd providing engineering support. CBRE represented Invesco in the deal and JLL worked alongside the developers.

Midtown Union will be within half a mile of Invesco’s global headquarters at Dewberry Capital’s 295,000-square-foot Two Peachtree Point, with its 175,000-square-foot lease set to expire at the end of June 2023, per data from Yardi Matrix. Invesco moved its head office to Atlanta in 2007 and currently employs approximately 650 people in the metro. With the company’s $70 million expansion, the firm plans to add 500 jobs.

Coming down the pipeline

Midtown Union development site. Image via Google Maps

The Midtown submarket is in the midst of a development boom. Some 2.3 million square feet of space is under construction according to Yardi Matrix, totaling more than 30 percent of the metro’s total office construction activity. Major projects underway include Norfolk Southern’s 762,000-square-foot headquarters and 1105 West Peachtree, Selig’s 680,000-square-foot multi-tenant development. Both are slated for completion in 2021.

Atlanta has continued to whet investor appetites in recent years. While last year’s total deliveries of nearly 2.7 million square feet were a modest decrease from 2017, the metro’s 7.7 million square feet of projects under construction signals developer confidence in office demand remaining strong and stable.