Retail Corridor Updates: Atlanta and New York

Here are updates to retail developments in two major cities:

* In Atlanta, the 2.2 million-square-foot Piedmont Center office complex in that city’s Buckhead district will be reborn as a mixed-use destination that will include a street-level, pedestrian friendly retail/restaurant boulevard. That effort is being overseen by CP Group (Boca Raton, Fla.), which has undertaken similar efforts at two other major developments in Atlanta: the Bank of America Plaza in Midtown and The Center (formerly the CNN Center) in the city’s downtown.

“We’re not just updating an office park; we’re building a destination,” said Chris Eachus, a Founding Partner at CP Group, which purchased the center last June. “New restaurants and retail will anchor this project as a vital part of the Buckhead community.”

Upgrades to the 46-acre Piedmont Center site are set to begin later this year; no completion timetable is yet available, nor was it known at this posting if the developer has landed any specific retailers or restaurants for the site.

* In New York, Vornado Realty Trust has hired Newmark Group as the exclusive leasing agent for the next stage of the ongoing retail update in The Penn District in Manhattan.

Together the firms plan to create a cohesive, street-level retail experience along both sides of Seventh Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets. Working with Newmark, Vornado will develop this corridor to complement its existing anchors, Macy’s and Primark’s 78,000-square-foot flagship store that’s set to open this spring. They will also work to make additions to the retail corridor in the Moynihan Train Hall on 33rd St., which sits opposite Penn Station.

Those projects are part of Vornado’s ongoing $2.5 billion revitalization of The Penn District campus. Over the past decade, that effort had included redeveloping more than 5 million square feet of Class A office space and developing just over 1 million square feet of new retail.