Office Leasing Abruptly Slows in Atlanta

Sean Moynihan

ATLANTA—Newmark Knight Frank’s Q1 Atlanta office report, due out in a few days, will show that 1.8 million square feet were delivered, the largest quarterly total in five years. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, leasing activity saw a significant slowdown in March, which will result in a decrease in executed transactions over the next 3-6 months. Construction activity will become more intermittent as permitting divisions at local jurisdictions are slower to inspect and approve projects, with softening fundamentals over the next 6-9 months until business operations are back to normal.

“The effect is people are now working for home and we really won’t see the impact of this until April when people start paying rent,” Sean Moynihan, Newmark Knight Frank EVP and Atlanta Market Leader, tells GlobeSt.com. “That’s what we are anticipating from our conversations with tenants and landlords and banks. The consistent message out there is everything is waiting for that shoe to drop on April 1.”