Cumberland: Traffic Concerns Don't Slow Office Activity

In a submarket that has its fits and starts, Cumberland's office market looks to be booming again. And that's despite mounting fears of the impact the new Braves stadium will have on traffic out there.

So far this year, office landlords have seen more than 560k SF of office space absorbed among its 26.4M SF stock, in excess of 200k SF alone among the Class-A properties, according to CoStar Group numbers. That's a huge blip upward, a reversal from last year when the market actually lost ground, with nearly 150k SF of space given up by tenants, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Big names making moves most recently include United Health Group's 127k SF lease at 2100 RiverEdge Parkway; Lincoln National Life adding hundreds of new jobs at RiverEdge Summit with more than 100k SF; Synovus' new 100k SF office building at 1100 Overton; and Seven Oaks Properties nabbing Delta Community Credit and Bennett Thrasher as lead tenants at its new Riverwood 200 project.

Longtime Northwest leasing broker, Childress Klein's Connie Engel tells us this about “robust” activity in the submarket: “I think that certainly the Braves have been a catalyst for all of that. I'm finding that most people are excited by it.” That's what a $1.5B mixed-use stadium project could do for a submarket. But, it also raises concerns among office prospects about the impact SunTrust Park traffic will have on one of the most congested areas in Metro Atlanta.

Greenstone Properties' Chris Scott says traffic is—by far—the main concern prospects have about locating in the Cumberland/Galleria area. But at the same time, he says he feels the concerns are overblown. The Braves will have 81 home games a year, and of those, a large percentage will be on the weekend. “I don't think it's going to be a game changer. If any submarket can handle [the additional traffic], it's this one. If you did something like this in [Central] Perimeter, it'd be over.” 

Of course, Greenstone has skin in the game for that to be the case: It's in the midst of attempting to break ground on Encore Center, a 200k SF Class-A office building at the southwest corner of I-75 and Cumberland Boulevard, down the road from the new stadium. Chris says they'll only break ground once the firm signs an anchor tenant there. Chris says it's the rates—finding a tenant willing to pay rents on new construction—that are the bigger challenge for developers in Cumberland. But more tenants are willing to shoulder the rents, given the tightening markets in Buckhead and Central Perimeter.

Certainly the Braves organization has plans for traffic mitigation. Cobb County has plans for a pedestrian bridge over I-285 linking Galleria Centre and the stadium park, but that won't be ready in time for the debut game in April 2017. On their own website, the Braves identify 17 access points to SunTrust Park, including from Akers Mill, Terrell Mill and Windy Hill roads as well as Cobb Parkway and Powers Ferry Road.

“If anybody tells you exactly what's going to happen in April of 2017, they're lying,” says SK Real Estate's Tom Parker (on left with Scott & Associates' Hugh Scott Jr. and Hugh Scott III), who leases Circle 75 office park. “But tell me where in Atlanta there's not any traffic?" Given that traffic along the interstates by the park already tallies more than 300,000 a day, Tom says another 10,000 cars on game day is a blip. And unlike Turner Field, SunTrust Park will be a “destination point” where people will come much earlier than game time to hang out, shop and eat, and even linger around after. All of that could mitigate traffic flows in the area.