Hotel Gets Green Light at $750 Mil Lindbergh Center Project
GlobeSt.com; New York; Oct 26, 2001; Roxanna Guilford-Blake

Abstract:
ATLANTA-Despite delays and court battles, Carter & Associates and MARTA move forward with Lindbergh City Center as plans for a hotel receive official approval.

Full Text:
(Copyright (c) 2001 by GlobeSt.com LLC)

ATLANTA-With the go-ahead for a new hotel, Carter & Associates is another step closer to completion of Lindbergh City Center, a massive mixed-use project at the Lindbergh MARTA station in Buckhead.

Carter & Associates has received a special-use permit for a 190-room, 133,000 sf hotel. Construction on the hotel, which will be part of the Marriott chain, is slated to begin next summer and should be finished by the summer of 2003, Chuck Konas, Carter's vice president of transit-oriented development, tells GlobeSt.com.

Carter has no cost estimates on the hotel itself, but Konas places the estimated cost of the entire project at $750 million. He stresses that it is subject to change.

Meanwhile, Carter continues with work on the 50-acre development, which includes 2.68 million sf of office space, 330,000 sf of retail, 566 apartments, 388 condominiums and 10,461 parking spaces.

Lindbergh City Center, a joint venture between Carter and MARTA, will be a live/work/play community with mass transit as its centerpiece. The community's focal point will a pedestrian friendly "Main Street" with shops, restaurants and other retail and entertainment establishments.

MARTA is spending $81 million on infrastructure, station modifications and parking for customers, according to MARTA spokeswoman Steen Miles. These elements should be finished in late 2003.

The office complex is scheduled for completion in August 2002, Konas tells GlobeSt.com. At that point, BellSouth Corp., the lead office tenant, will relocate 4,000 of its employees there.

Konas declined to discuss rental rates. A third-quarter analysis of the Buckhead/Lenox submarket by Richard Bowers & Co. shows the average asking full-service rent for class A, B and C space is $26.48 per sf. For class A, the average rent is $28.62 per sf.

The project has faced delays, mostly due to more than two years of court battles with the Garden Hills Neighborhood Association. Two issues remain outstanding: The association's zoning appeal is before an appellate court, and the superior court has yet to rule on a challenge to MARTA's right to lease property.

According to project insiders, negotiations continue, but due to the litigation, they were unable to discuss it.

Carter is the master developer and is developing the infrastructure, the hotel and the office space. Federal Realty Investment Trust, a retail REIT based in Rockville, MD, will develop the retail space.

Atlanta-based Harold A. Dawson Co. will develop the condominiums, and contrary to some published reports, locally based Post Properties Inc. is still on track to develop the apartments.

Konas dismisses rumors that Post has pulled out of the project. "I talk to them every day," he tells GlobeSt.com.