Central Atlanta Progress
HR&A positioned Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) to advance office and hotel conversions as a strategy for Downtown Atlanta’s future. Our feasibility study analyzed market conditions, developed building typologies with Lord Aeck Sargent and Palacio, modeled financial scenarios, and created a framework for evaluating conversion opportunities and subsidy needs.
Downtown Atlanta’s office market faces declining performance, creating opportunities and need for adaptation via conversions but a lack of clarity about which buildings might serve as strong candidates. HR&A analyzed the performance of office, hotel, and residential markets in Downtown Atlanta, Midtown, and Buckhead to assess Downtown’s current and projected position relative to surrounding submarkets. Working with Lord Aeck Sargent and Palacio, we developed four representative office building typologies and estimated conversion costs for each. HR&A built a financial model testing feasibility under current market conditions and future office performance scenarios, generating subsidy estimates that combine grants and tax abatements based on building typology and projected vacancy, as well as costs per housing unit produced.
These subsidy estimates informed the evaluation of over 100 potential conversion candidates in Downtown Atlanta. The resulting evaluation matrix provided CAP with tools to identify priority conversion targets and advocate for incentive programs that could transform underperforming office assets into residential supply, repositioning Downtown Atlanta’s real estate market for changing demand patterns.
- Turning offices into homes could help Atlanta, but no ‘silver bullet’ — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Atlanta leaders identify 11 Downtown buildings for potential office-to-residential conversions — Atlanta Business Journal
- Downtown Atlanta offices can be used for housing, study says — Axios Atlanta
- Revitalizing Downtown: Unlocking the Potential of Office-to-Residential Conversions in Atlanta
