What's next for Georgia-Pacific's transformation
Hi, I’m Zachary Hansen , and welcome to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ’s office market and workplace newsletter!
On the third Tuesday of every month, we offer a sweeping view of workplace trends and opportunities around metro Atlanta. That means insights useful to everyone from desk jockeys to C-suite executives.
Thanks for stopping your scroll, and please drop a comment on what you’d like to see next time – or email me at [email protected].
Step by step
Renovation projects take time, especially when they’re 697 feet tall.
Pulp and paper giant Georgia-Pacific LLC is in the early stages of giving its namesake 51-story downtown Atlanta tower a mixed-use makeover. Plans include transforming a large portion of the building’s underused office space into shops, restaurants and some of the highest altitude apartments in the Southeast by 2027.
In early February, Atlanta approved the project’s special administrative permit application, the first step in bringing the mixed-use tower vision to fruition. But like the tower's staired design, there are several steep steps to climb in the project, and it still has a ways to go.
Georgia-Pacific has also made progress fleshing out its development team. Studios was named as the project’s design architect, while Noelle Consulting was tapped for market analysis.
Georgia-Pacific hasn’t conducted media interviews since the conversion was announced in September, but company leaders said at the time that the project is a sign of the times for the office market.
“The office landscape has changed,” Christine Fischer , president and CEO of Georgia-Pacific, said at the time. “And we recognize that the adaptive reuse of our site and office tower can create greater long-term value.”
As Atlanta continues to grapple with a record-setting amount of unwanted office space, retrofitting that space into something more desirable helps kill two birds with one stone. Real estate experts, however, warn that only a few buildings in Atlanta fit the parameters to be potential conversion candidates, so it’s likely not a widespread solution.
Speaking of potential candidates…
Another development team in DeKalb County believes it has an office tower that really wants to live on as apartments.
Highwoods Properties and Brand Properties plan to convert the 18-story tower at 1800 Century Blvd. in Chamblee into 289 multifamily units. The glass-clad building, one of the tallest in its area, was the longtime home of the Georgia Department of Revenue.
The department recently announced it relocated its office to 2595 Century Pkwy, roughly a half-mile away from its old digs. Its workers will get a good view of the conversion as it takes place.
While on the topic of government workers, the Trump administration’s bevy of executive orders and directives that impact the federal workforce have plastered headlines in recent weeks. Return-to-office mandates, buyout offers and mass firings are taking place with blazing speed, and it’s something we at the AJC will be following closely in the coming months.
If you’re a federal worker affected by these changes, we’d love to hear from you. Click here for my contact information.
A new training ground
Folks who like to get their hands dirty will soon have a new professional playground in Cobb County.
Phoenix-based University Technical Institute, a for-profit trade school, announced in early February that it’s leasing 150,000 square feet of flex industrial and workspace in Smyrna to establish an Atlanta campus. Set to open in 2026, it will offer training across several curriculum areas, including robotics, automation, welding and automobiles.
Workforce training is commonly touted by Georgia leaders as a vital piece of our state’s economic development puzzle, especially when it comes to advanced manufacturing.
Bouts of burnout
Ambition is always appreciated in the workplace, but make sure to take care of yourself. Work to live, not the other way around.
A new report from workplace preparation website LiveCareer found that more than three-fourths of employees surveyed agree to take on assignments outside of their job description but also that those extra responsibilities further burnout. Based on a December 2024 survey of 1,160 U.S. workers, 93% reported burnout, and only 11% said they’ve tried to negotiate or set boundaries with their supervisors.
To no one’s surprise, burnout can sink morale and stifle productivity, so it’s best to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe to discuss these habits.
Stat of the month: 2.1%
That’s the vacancy rate for Savannah’s office market in early February, according to CoStar Group .
Normally we focus on Atlanta’s office market, which has 26 times the office square footage of our Coastal Georgia neighbor. But for the glut of vacant workspace throughout Atlanta, it’s sobering to see other cities face the opposite issue. A glance at other Georgia cities, such as Augusta, Athens and my hometown of Columbus, show Savannah is in a class of its own with so little empty space. But it also reveals Atlanta’s office market issues are unique.
Growing businesses and communities to provide positive collective impact.
1 周I’m glad to see that legacy buildings like this one are being converted. Hopefully this will halt the crushing, canopy-clearing, (ugly architecture), development of every postage stamp-sized piece of land along the Peachtree Street corridor from Whitehall to Brookhaven.