The owner of Atlanta’s tallest building and the former CNN Center has stepped in to take over the stalled redevelopment of Buckhead’s biggest office park. 

But exactly what a reimagined, 14-building Piedmont Center might look like has yet to be determined. 

Sunbelt office owner-operator titan CP Group announced Tuesday it has completed the all-cash acquisition of Piedmont Center, a 46-acre campus spanning 2.2-million square feet along Piedmont Road, just north of Buckhead’s main shopping and hotel districts.

The Ardent Companies, considered one of Buckhead’s largest office landlords, bought Piedmont Center four years ago and announced plans for a comprehensive remake called “Oxton” in early 2023. 

Those plans failed to materialize, and on Tuesday the Piedmont Center campus was sold in foreclosure for a $200 million credit bid on the Fulton County Courthouse steps, as Bisnow Atlanta reports. (Austrian investment firm Bawag Group was the winning bidder, but CP Group didn’t mention that firm as a partner in a press release announcing Piedmont Center’s purchase shortly after the auction, the website reports.)  

Overview of Piedmont Center's 14-building campus today. Courtesy of CP Group

Officials with CP Group, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla. with a corporate office in Atlanta, say the master-planning and capital-improvement process for Piedmont Center’s remake into a hospitality driven, highly amenitized campus will begin immediately. 

Planned upgrades in Buckhead are described by CP Group as: 

“… thoughtfully curated food and beverage concepts, reimagined lobbies and conference centers, expanded fitness facilities, and revitalized outdoor and common areas. [Elsewhere will be] high-end spec suites—fully built, move-in-ready offices—designed to meet the demand for flexibility and speed among today’s tenants…” 

The 3525 Piedmont Road campus includes 14 office buildings, where more than 200 companies have a presence. Other upgrades in recent years have included 1.2 miles of walking trails and what the previous owners described as “the fastest internet in Buckhead.”  

Ardent had hoped to move forward with Oxton in late 2023. Plans called for reimagining more than 35,000 square feet of ground-level office space in buildings 1 to 4 at Piedmont Center into what was described as “a mixed-use experience unlike anything in Atlanta.” Scofflaw Brewing Co. was announced two years ago as the first signed tenant, but the brewery didn’t materialize. 

Previous plans for a Piedmont Center campus remake distributed by Ardent Companies in 2023. Courtesy of Ardent Companies; designs, Square Feet Studio

Ardent Companies; designs, Square Feet Studio

Ardent’s plans more generally called for retail to spill into the office complex’s courtyard, beneath a canopy of tall, mature trees, and for food-and-beverage vibrancy to continue from morning until late at night.

Across Atlanta’s three core submarkets, CP Group now controls more than 8 million square feet of space. Renovations at the company’s other trophy properties—Bank of America Plaza and The Center (formerly CNN Center)—are ongoing. 

“Piedmont Center’s scale and iconic presence in the heart of Buckhead presents a rare opportunity to reimagine a legacy campus for the future,” Chris Eachus, a CP Group founding partner, announced Tuesday. 

What, dear readers, would that future for Piedmont Center look like, in a perfect world?  

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