ATLANTA—Monetha Cobb, managing director of Franklin Street of Atlanta, is seeing bidding wars for restaurant space in Atlanta. Against that backdrop, she gave us a run down of the new retail development in the city. There’s good news and bad news for retailers looking to expand.
“There are numerous new developments occurring, but in very focused areas and asset classes,” Cobb tells GlobeSt.com. “Most large-scale projects in-town focus more on multifamily or office due to the pricing and demand for those sectors.”
Cobb is quick to note that retail may be a component of the office and multifamily projects. That’s good news. The bad news is she isn’t currently seeing any large-scale, retail-driven developments underway.
“The most recent large scale, notable retail-driven projects have been Avalon, which opened in October 2014, Buckhead Atlanta, which has had tiered openings over the last six months, and Ponce City Market, which is scheduled to open sometime this fall,” Cobb says. “If there is a small to mid-size development or redevelopment taking place, it is most likely being driven by one of the many grocers expanding in the metro Atlanta market.”
As Cobb sees it, this is great for many smaller restaurant or service-oriented tenants that benefit greatly from the “daily needs” component the grocery store brings. But there’s another side.
“Since grocers are typically the lead in these developments, they are given much more oversight on what other types of tenants they will or won’t allow the developers to lease space to,” Cobb says. “This is especially common with use categories such as fitness and dollar stores, two categories that remain very active with their expansion.”
