Has The Atlanta Office Amenities Race ‘Jumped The Shark’?

Today’s Class-A office buildings are stacked with amenities — things like dog parks, coffee shops and golf simulators.

But the amenity that matters most to a prospective tenant might be a landlord with deep pockets, according to CRE panelists at Bisnow’s Nov. 20 Atlanta Office Market Outlook event. 

“In the tenant community, the capitalization of a building right now is the utmost amenity,” Banyan Street Capital President Zac Gruber said at the event at 3445 Peachtree. “There’s no shortage of — whether it’s Atlanta or nationally — buildings, great properties, great locations that just have a broken capital stack.”

Out of the 106.5M SF of Class-A office space in Metro Atlanta, only 22.9% of that space has landlords who can fulfill lease obligations, offer competitive concession packages and fully fund tenant improvement packages, according to CBRE. 

As companies push to get employees back to the office, perks are the carrot to go along with the stick of RTO mandates. That means amenities have become a major driver for landlords to lure tenants as well.

In June, Toro Development snagged a 73K SF lease at The Medley mixed-use project in Alpharetta for the headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim. The Medley’s planned amenity base is what drew the firm to the project, said John Kelley, a partner with the developer.

Toro is nearing another deal that, together with Boehringer Ingelheim, will fill up 80% of the 110K SF office component at The Medley before the project officially opens, Kelley said. 

“On property, we have 17 food and beverage options. That is the No. 1 amenity for office tenants: Where are people going to eat without having to get in the car?” he said. 

Amenities, of course, don’t come cheap.

Between 2019 and 2023, average TI packages jumped from under $75 per SF for top-tier office space to more than $100 per SF, according to CBRE. 

In their zeal to attract tenants, some landlords may be tempted to focus on the whistles and bangs of TI amenities, like golf simulators, red-light rooms and spas, Gruber said. These perks often are not what ultimately lure the tenant, he said.

Selig Enterprises Chief Investment Officer Matt Rendle said lower-tier office building owners may make the expensive mistake of adding amenities just for the sake of adding them. Even if tenants are clamoring for amenities, landlords must still be strategic in their TI spending.

“We are at a risk of jumping the shark on these amenities,” Rendle said. 

Sometimes, amenities may even lead to some awkward moments that employees would rather avoid, said Cassie McCrain, the managing director of Barings.

“Somebody was telling me that they had this whole wellness suite with a cold plunge and a salt bath,” McCrain said. “I think it’d be a little bit odd if you walk in and the boss is in the cold plunge. Some things are better left at home.”

The TI landscape might be changing as office ownership changes. As low-interest lending terms come due and new investors assume ownership and demand strong returns on office investments, tenants may find new landlords less likely to jump to offer an amenity stack, CBRE Vice Chairman Will Yowell said

“There's going to be, I think, a real wholesale change of ownership across the board and the top-tier assets, it's going to be very well-capitalized groups, and the return is going to be great on those assets,” Yowell said.

We may already be seeing this change. Since 2016, TI allowances jumped 112% to $212 per SF in gateway markets, but that growth leveled off last year to just 8%, according to a CompStak report. 

Also, the amount of trophy office space available in Metro Atlanta is dwindling, along with the pipeline of new office space nationally. In the report, CompStak found just 12.2M SF of new office space is expected to open nationally in 2026, one-third of what was built in 2024.

All this is to say that as tenants negotiate with new landlords, they could find they don’t have the same bargaining power for amenities, or even rent, that they have enjoyed in the past few years, Yowell said.

“As space gets absorbed, those landlords are gonna be able to name their price,” he said.