A downtown landmark that houses the Internal Revenue Service, the Atlanta Immigration Court and the Social Security Administration could be sold, with consequences that would reach well past its own footprint.
The U.S. General Services Administration has selected the Peachtree Summit Federal Building, the 29-story triangular tower at 401 W. Peachtree St., for accelerated disposal.
The scale
Peachtree Summit was one of eight buildings nationwide identified for disposition in March, and at nearly 800,000 square feet it is the largest among them. That list has since grown to more than 40 federal properties as of May.
GSA says the buildings were selected based on assessments of deferred maintenance and operating cost, utilization, and the availability of replacement space in the local market. Atlanta's tower is roughly 70 percent occupied today.
The building
Completed in 1975 near downtown's northern rim, the tower was designed by noted Atlanta architect Joe Amisano, whose other work includes Lenox Square and the Peachtree Center MARTA station. It was the only one of three planned high-rises on the site that was actually built.
What it would mean
GSA frames the disposals as reducing the burden on taxpayers while giving agencies space better matched to their missions. For downtown, the calculation is different.
Nearly 800,000 square feet of federal office at 70 percent occupancy still represents thousands of daily workers on a block that supports nearby restaurants, transit ridership and street activity. Where those agencies land, and what happens to a 50-year-old tower that would need substantial reinvestment for any other use, are open questions.
Downtown has spent the past several years converting obsolete office buildings to housing, from the Georgia-Pacific Center to Rhodes-Haverty. Peachtree Summit joining that pipeline would be a plausible outcome. So would a vacant tower on West Peachtree.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published August 2025.