The rejuvenation of Atlanta’s largest office building is set to include a swinging entertainment component.

Billed as the “nation's leading indoor golf and entertainment experience,” Five Iron Golf is teeing up its first location in the Southeast at the base of a landmark Midtown skyscraper recently rechristened Tower Square.

Five Iron Golf has signed a lease for 16,000 square feet of space at Tower Square’s plaza level, located adjacent to the Fox Theatre, a forest of newer apartment buildings, and hundreds of thousands of square feet of upscale offices in new Midtown towers.  

CLARIFICATION, October 24, 4:58 p.m. CBRE officials reach out to clarify the forthcoming Five Iron space is not located in the Tower Square offices but in the adjacent annex, which offers about 80,000 square feet of retail, entertainment, and restaurant space. Here’s an updated rendering of the annex, as depicted when fully leased:  

Courtesy of CBRE

The Midtown location will mark the Manhattan-based brand’s 23rd in the U.S. Other outposts are on the way in Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Indianapolis, plus three more in New York City and one in Boston scheduled to open next month, according to a Five Iron Golf announcement today.

Formerly known as AT&T Midtown Center I, BellSouth Center, and Southern Bell Center, Tower Square is a 47-story building opened in 1981 that encompasses 1.4 million square feet. That makes it not only Atlanta’s largest building in terms of square footage but the biggest in the southern U.S., according to Avison Young Atlanta Agency Leasing Group, the commercial real estate firm recently tasked with filling it.

Rendering depicting the building's private plaza along West Peachtree Street, and how it could function once fully built out with retail and other components. Courtesy of Avison Young Atlanta Agency Leasing Group

For its Midtown location, Five Iron Golf expects to build 13 golf simulators with high-speed cameras designed to capture each angle of a golfer’s swing. Elsewhere will be a more typical bar setting: widescreen TVs, a full-service restaurant, and “leisure games.” League play, golf clinics, private lessons, and other events are also planned, per company reps.

Five Iron Golf Atlanta is scheduled to open across 16,000 square feet sometime in mid-2023. (For context, Puttshack’s first U.S. location at The Interlock district on Howell Mill Road—another golf-centric, good-times concept—spans about 25,000 square feet, with four tech-driven, mini-golf courses.)   

Avison Young reps believe the updated tower property is positioned to thrive in the face of the WFH and hybrid-working zeitgeist while stimulating the south Midtown economy with job growth and fresh public features. Capital improvements that wrapped last year include the largest private greenspace and plaza in Midtown, an elevated corner space on West Peachtree Street meant to give employees access to fresh air and space to relax after work.

Courtesy of Avison Young Atlanta Agency Leasing Group

Recently redesigned lobby spaces at the base of Tower Square. Courtesy of Avison Young Atlanta Agency Leasing Group

Avison Young officials have pointed to relatively new office dwellers nearby—those working at Norfolk Southern’s headquarters across the street, Tech Square, CODA, and Anthem offices, among other places—as evidence the market for retail exists.

The golf concept apparently concurs.

• Recent Midtown news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)