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Buckhead building boom goes on…and on

Cousins’ plan for Terminus keeps growing

MARCH 16, 2006
The Story
BY JOHN SCHAFFNER

Most people who know Cousins Properties could have anticipated one 27-story office building with ground-level retail was not going satisfy the vision of one of the Atlanta region’s long-term premiere developers for the signature building site in Buckhead—the crossroads of Peachtree and Piedmont Roads.

In the past two weeks, a clearer picture of Cousins’ vision for Terminus has come into sharper focus. Master plans filed with the city call for a second 22-story, 500,000-square-foot office tower on the site, along with three new residential towers, a parking deck and an oval-shaped Peachtree Road structure for retail and restaurants.

And, speaking of restaurants, the Cobb County developer—which lays claim to some of the city’s most upscale and classic buildings in downtown and Midtown before making its name developing suburban office campuses and retail centers—announced this week that four restaurants of different flavors will share a common roof in the Buckhead development which plans to open its first phase in 2007.

AquaKnox (seafood), Lola (Italian), BrickTop’s (American) and MF Sushibar (what the name implies) will anchor the oval-shaped retail wing of the Terminus 100 building, right on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont.

The project’s site plan, which was approved last week by the city, shows a 20-story, 150-unit residential condominium tower that will be built on top of the complex’s 1,700-space parking desk fronting on Piedmont Road. Two more residential towers, both 40-stories tall, are planned behind the parking deck.

The Terminus 100 office tower now under construction is scheduled for completion and occupancy in 2007, at which time Cousins Properties will be moving its headquarters there from Cobb County. Terminus 100 is 42 percent leased and reportedly has enough tenants in the works to be 75 percent committed. The second office tower planned for the site will be named Terminus 200.

Now that the development plans have become more clear, Buckhead leaders and residents may be wondering how long it will take before the other three corners at Peachtree and Piedmont will be redeveloped for higher use—the northwest being the site of a Rooms to Go and a Marshall’s shopping center, southwest the site of a Wachovia Bank building and southeast the site of a Selig Enterprises shopping center that includes the Container Store and other retailers.

John Goff, the lead developer for Cousins on the Terminus project recently told The Story, “We had perceived a need in the Buckhead market for a new office building. That was the original driver. We did a site search,” he explained. “What this site gave to us that any other office building didn’t was a chance to really create a place—something Buckhead doesn’t have.”

Cousins bought the property from Pope & Land in the summer of 2004.

Goff said Buckhead has a collection of individual office buildings or individual stores. “What we really wanted to do at Cousins was create an integrated place.” He said the way Cousins is structured now—with residential, office and retail components—“we have the ability, we have the capital and we have the expertise to pull off our vision.”

And, Goff has a track record to make it all come to fruition, having come to Atlanta after heading up the development of a similar mixed-use project for Cousins in Charlotte called Gateway Village.

“What makes the project (Terminus) special is that we wanted to create a retail base—meaningful retail of restaurants and boutiques,” he added, pointing to renderings that show 76,000 square feet of retail space around the ground floor of the Terminus 100 office tower.

Goff pointed out that the office building lobby touches the ground level, but that entry was turned to the interior of the building. He said what Cousins wanted on Peachtree and Piedmont “was to create a retail edge.”

Goff said the initial push was for obtaining restaurants, which resulted in the four leases announced last week, which will occupy about 36,000 square feet. He said the push was on for a great deal of diversity in food choices—“all very Buckhead, high end”—and that also was obtained.

One of those restaurants, AquaKnox, is a seafood restaurant that has made a name for itself in the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Lola is an Italian restaurant from the Atlanta Here to Serve group, which also owns Twist, Shout, Strip and Goldfish in Atlanta. BrickTop’s is an American restaurant from Joe Ledbetter, who founded the Houston’s restaurant chain, and MF Sushibar is by brothers Chris and Alex Kinjo, who originally opened on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

Now, Goff said, they will start doing the leasing on the boutiques.

“The third component of our place making is the residential,” Goff explained. He said the site plan was amended to “pull the density up and make the footprint smaller” on the site “to create some really great public spaces.” He said the amount of residential is essentially the same, but the amended plan takes two of the residential towers to 40 stories each and the third at 20 stories, but starting on the top of the parking deck.

Between the Terminus 100 office tower and parking deck, there will be a covered hardscape plaza to create entry to the site off of Piedmont Road and create a public room for such activities as concerts by the symphony, etc. The retail also fronts onto this plaza. Goff said this same concept was used in the Charlotte project which he oversaw and now it is being brought to Buckhead. “It becomes a great quad for the restaurants, but also a space for concerts and charity use. It is a public space that Buckhead doesn’t have,” he added.

Goff explained that Cousins “has gone to great lengths to break the parking deck down so that it feels more like a building and not like a parking deck.” He said the retail goes along the ground level and the parking deck picks up the same building skin detail as the other buildings.

He explained that by putting the condo tower on top of the parking deck, it provides great views for those who buy units in the building and by bringing the façade of the condo building down to the street level it begins to break up the mass of the parking deck.

Goff said they will begin marketing the condo units in that first building in May and it is scheduled to open at the end of 2007. He said the parking deck has to be built before the condo tower can be built on top of it.

“We are very fortunate on this project that it is the right plan at the right time,” Goff said.
Site plans for the signature building site in Buckhead show three residential towers, two office towers, a parking deck and space for retail and restaurants. The first phase of the development will open
in 2007.