Five months after plans first surfaced, the conversion of one of Atlanta's tallest and most recognizable office towers has cleared what its developers are calling a major milestone.
Atlanta's Office of Zoning and Development approved a Special Administrative Permit for the redevelopment of Georgia-Pacific Center, the 51-story landmark at 133 Peachtree Street. The permit is the procedural gate that allows the project to move toward construction.
A 697-foot pink granite landmark
Georgia-Pacific Center is the sixth-tallest building in Atlanta and among its most identifiable, with a pink granite exterior, a dramatic stair-stepped rear facade pointed east, and changeable lighting. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed it; the granite was quarried in Marble Falls, Texas. It opened in 1982 and carries 1.3 million square feet of Class A office space today. It was built solidly enough that it sustained relatively minor damage in the destructive 2008 downtown tornado.
What the conversion adds
Faced with historically high downtown office vacancy, the building's owners unveiled plans in September to turn the upper floors into more than 400 apartments, which would put some of the highest-elevation residential units in the Southeast on Peachtree Street. Roughly 600,000 square feet of Class A office would remain, anchored by Georgia-Pacific and Koch Inc., alongside more than 2,100 parking spaces.
The street-level piece is arguably the more important one for downtown. Plans call for about 125,000 square feet of restaurant, entertainment and retail space, plus a landscaped, MARTA-connected central plaza spanning 35,000 square feet fronting Peachtree Street along the Atlanta Streetcar line.
Everything announced so far is considered phase one. Enough room is being reserved for future development that could include a hotel plus additional retail and residences.
Timeline and team
Project leaders are targeting a groundbreaking in 2025 and delivery in fall 2027. Office conversions have a reputation for being expensive and structurally complicated, but the development team appears undeterred.
That team includes Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio as architect of record, Studios as design architect, Healy Weatherholtz on retail brokerage, Kimley-Horn on civil engineering, Studio Saint on interior design, Transwestern on consulting and property management, and Brasfield and Gorrie on preconstruction.
When the plans were announced, Georgia-Pacific president and CEO Christian Fischer said the company is acutely aware of the need for more residential, shopping, dining and entertainment options in its downtown neighborhood. Mayor Andre Dickens called the proposal transformative.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published February 2025.
