Hines Plans 625,000-SF Tower, Negotiates 400,000-SF Lease

Hines confirms it has contracted to buy two of the six acres at the site from landowner Woodruff Arts Center for an undisclosed sum. Industrial real estate brokers tell GlobeSt.com the price will be about $1 million per acre or $22.96 per sf. Woodruff bought the land in 2000. The unnamed tower would be the first phase of the Symphony Center venture.

Hines hopes to hedge its bet with a long-term lease being negotiated with locally based law firm King & Spalding for 400,000 sf or 64% of the building's rentable area. King & Spalding would occupy the top 14 floors with an option to expand in later years. Hines and law firm officials couldn't be reached by press time.

But area office brokers intimate with the project tell GlobeSt.com the lease is probably for 20 years at an average rent of $26 per sf. That would make the aggregate value of the lease about $10.8 million per year or a total $208 million. It would be the largest leasing contract of its kind ever signed in metro Atlanta, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

King & Spalding plans to occupy its new space in April 2006 when it will move from its existing quarters at the 191 Peachtree Tower. King & Spalding has been Downtown since it was founded in 1885. Downtown boosters are not ecstatic over the law firm's planned relocation, according to a published report.

When it opens, the 650-foot tall Hines building would be the tallest office structure erected in Atlanta since 1992 when the 1,023-foot, 55-story Bank of America Plaza and the 871-foot, 60-story SunTrust Plaza opened. SunTrust Plaza is the tallest office tower in the Southeast.

The 76-story, 1,064-foot high Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel is the tallest commercial building in Atlanta and the Southeast. SunTrust Plaza and Westin Peachtree were designed by Atlanta-based John Portman and Associates.

The office portion of the Hines project would sit atop 12 levels of parking which would offer street-level retail and restaurants, according to plans filed with the Atlanta Regional commission and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. Both agencies have to sign off on the venture before Hines could break ground.

The Hines building would be connected to the planned new symphony hall building by a 1.5-acre public plaza area. Pickard Chilton of New Haven, CT designed the Hines tower.