For example, Portman Holdings is currently renovating an office building to incorporate a 200-room hotel on Peachtree Street in the downtown Atlanta CBD. Once complete next year, it will house the only hotel in downtown Atlanta that is directly above a MARTA transit station, providing access to some of the city’s best attractions, convention locations, business districts, and more. It would be nearly impossible to find a comparable site on which to build a new hotel.

A large section of the U.S. population is currently regaining a taste for urban living and moving from suburbs back into redeveloped cities. Many of these individuals are attracted to buildings that maintain historical elements and character, features that cannot be built from the ground up. This is true across all kinds of real estate, but none more so than office. As companies compete to attract the best talent possible, locating in a redeveloped building — with its character, charm, and amenities — is becoming a key part of recruitment and retention strategies.
Adaptive reuse is so appealing that our 60-year-old development company has expanded its business model beyond ground-up development. Our strategy now includes buying below replacement costs in urban cores and taking a creative approach to utilize buildings for something other than their originally intended purposes. If the team is able to preserve or restore original and historic elements such as brick or windows, redevelopment will benefit from an authenticity that cannot be recreated in new buildings.