Like other developers who have discovered less expensive land onthe south side, Safe Harbor is offering lower starting prices of$145,000 per unit on the condos, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Thesecond and final phase of the project is scheduled to open in 2006and will have projected starting price tags of about $185,000 perunit. The condo venture is just north of the Metropolitan Parkwayintersection at Interstate 85 near Hartsfield-Jackson InternationalAirport.

In another condo development proposal, locally based PostProperties Inc. is considering building a combined condominium andapartment complex in late 2005 on a long sought-after lot behindthe 900,000-sf Phipps Plaza shopping center in the Buckheadsubmarket. The condo venture would be Post's first in metroAtlanta, although it has already broken ground on a comparable$95-million, 12-story enterprise in Alexandria, VA that will have205 apartments and 145 condo units.

Post president and CEO David Stockert says the REIT is enteringthe condo development arena because of three factors--customerdemand, higher apartment vacancies and the entrance of majorplayers such as the Novare Group, Wood Partners, Gellerstedt Groupand Cousins Properties Inc. But buying the dirt in Buckhead atLenox Road and Phipps Boulevard won't be easy or cheap, areabrokers familiar with the property tell GlobeSt.com. Locally basedPope & Land Enterprises, a major area developer and investor,unsuccessfully tried to rezone the site in 2001 for class A officesand a hotel. Even a lawsuit that landed in the Georgia SupremeCourt couldn't get the property rezoned for Pope & Land.Houston-based Finger Cos. planned 925 apartment units on the sitein July of this year but later shelved the project.