1010 Midtown Creates Restaurant Row in Atlanta

By Tony Wilbert

ATLANTA (July 18, 2008) - Midtown Atlanta, which over the past 10 years emerged as Atlanta’s hottest intown district, is fortifying its position as the place to be with the announcement that four new-to-Atlanta restaurants are coming to 12th & Midtown, a $ 2 billion mixed-use development on Peachtree.

This week, Daniel Corp. and Selig Enterprises, members of the 12^th & Midtown team, said Ri Ra Irish Pub, RA Sushi Bar Restaurant, pizzeria Piola and NoonIMidtown each has signed a lease for space in the project’s first building, the 1010 Midtown condo tower that curves along Peachtree (shown at left). The restaurants will open early next year along the Crescent Avenue side of the development.

For the record, 12^th & Midtown is an Edelman client, and our Real Estate & Sustainability team handled the announcement. That aside, there’s a legitimate story line here.

Ten years ago, when I lived on West Peachtree Street in Midtown, the restaurant offerings were slim. Crescent Avenue offered Mystic Pizza (long since closed), Front Page News (yet to be discovered), Vickery’s and South City Kitchen (too rich for my then $26,000/year salary at Atlanta Business Chronicle). Nearby, you could get a great burger at the former Varsity location at 11^th and West Peachtree and a greasy sandwich at Gorin’s 14^th and Peachtree where the Proscenium office tower now stands.

Since 1998, things changed drastically. Midtown attracted thousands of new residents and, as a result, dozens of new restaurants along Peachtree and on the immediate blocks east and west of the famed thoroughfare. Simultaneously, Crescent Avenue emerged as a hip street with clubs such as Opera and good food. Crescent was helped by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s decision to leave downtown Atlanta and replace a barren piece of land with a striking marble complex at Peachtree and 10^th Street, right across from the southern end of Crescent.

The 12^th & Midtown development is filling in the gap along Crescent between 12^th and 11^th streets and helping create a “Restaurant Row” on Crescent. The just-announced restaurants, because they’ll be new to the city, should lure people from most of Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods and close-in suburbs.

David Kelly, co-founder and managing director of Ri Ra, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he had considered opening one of his Irish pubs that features materials from well-know, older pubs in Ireland, seven years ago but felt the time wasn’t right.

Now it is.

What must come next are tenants for the spec office tower under construction as part of the 12^th & Midtown development and the retailers who would occupy the street-level spaces envisioned as part of the “Midtown Mile” shopping district. Signing four restaurants to the development should help entice office tenants because amenities play a critical role in a decision to locate an office somewhere.

A national retailer also would help.

Shirley Gouffon, senior vice president of Selig, is confident the retailers will come. One of the city’s top retail brokers, she’s been charged with making sure they do.

“We’re working hard to deliver a fresh mix of tenants that are unique to Atlanta,” Gouffon said. “I’m pleased with the strong interest 12^th & Midtown has received from international retailers, and we look forward to announcing additional tenants in the near future.”

We’ll keep you posted.

Comments

[Tyler]

This is pretty hard for me to get excited about. It seems like sushi restaurants tend to lose their appeal when there are more than three or four of them. Ri Ra looks a bit like a second rate Fado but I'm sure the rent they will be paying will make it $5 beer night every night. You have to worry that the development could face a similar fate as Peachtree Pointe where a restaurant faces a predetermined fate with a see-through office building above it. Either way, it will be interesting to see who wins the Buckhead vs. Midtown battle (not that the success of the projects is mutually exclusive). I would say this is a small victory for a Midtown project that seems well behind the desired pace.

[Brian]

This location is totally different than Peachtree Pointe given the nearby residential density and proximity to Georgia Tech. Look at Taco Mac and others down at Metropolitan for a more accurate reflection. With all the condos that have gone up since Tony and I lived in Midtown (late 90s), I think there is certainly some demand in the area for some new offerings. Fingers crossed.