Portman Holdings' latest project—a surprise to the market—could very well be the statement that the much-storied developer is looking back home for more deals.

We spoke with Portman's Charles Pinkham, whose firm snapped up 230 Peachtree with plans to convert it to a Hotel Indigo. Specifically, Portman will convert the first nine floors into a hotel, Charles tells us, while the remaining 290k SF (the 31-story tower is 415k SF) will remain office. (So some hotel guests will have to direct noise complaints to HR.) This is the first Portman project in Atlanta in a good number of years; the firm had otherwise been focused in Asia and India, especially during the recession. But as the economy recovers, he says, the company's refocusing in the US. "Just not in lieu of Asia,” he says.

230 Peachtree was a strategic buy for Portman, Charles says, given it neighbors AmericasMart and that it's a legacy property—Portman designed and developed the tower in the 1960s. (You never forget your first love... or any of your loves.) “If you look at what's going on in downtown Atlanta, this building is really the center of it all,” he says. Beyond Atlanta, the firm's investment and development teams will look at similar cities (think non-coastal, tier one) as opposed to prime markets like New York and San Francisco. There, he says, the markets are very competitive and quickly moving to all-cash.