This is really a very unique place we are developing in the heart of Buckhead, says Paisley Boney, IV, President of Ben Carter Companies, as he proudly contemplates the Piazza at Paces, his organization's new undertaking on a 17-acre site alongside Northside Parkway and Howell Mill Road.

First of all, this is an extraordinarily unique piece of property, he notes. It is located in the heart of probably the highest demographics on the East Coast. At the same time, the site is the only remaining commercially zoned land in this area; it is immediately adjacent to I-75, and it also has three interchanges that can serve it.

Phase I of Piazza at Paces, scheduled for completion in fall 2000, includes a nine-story, 212,000 sq. ft. Class A office building called The Forum, and The Borghese, a 12-story, 64-unit condominium with two penthouses. Plans call for rental rates at The Forum to be around $28 per sq. ft., while the units at The Borghese will average 2,300 sq. ft. and be priced from $500,000 to more than $1 million.The project team includes financial partner Ronus, the U.S. real estate arm of a European group owned by Ronald de Waal; Ben Carter Companies, the developer of The Forum, whose CEO is Ben Carter; and Southeast Capital Partners, Atlanta's premier condominium developer. CNM, the project's management and leasing company, is jointly owned by Ben Carter Companies and Ronus.

Honoring the past, looking to the future

Piazza at Paces will be top of the line all the way, as befits its location, and the look and feel of this unique concept is what will set it apart. We have literally spent hundreds of hours researching what was best for the site in terms of scale and product, says Bob Anderson, President of Ronus. The focus we've had from the beginning has been on quality. The Piazza at Paces vision illustrates our commitment to and respect for Buckhead's past and future.

While driving through the residential areas of Buckhead, and seeing all the great old estates, it really dawned on everyone on the team that the architectural inspiration for our project should be the residences... after all, this complex is really going into a neighborhood, says Boney.

Most of the grand old residences, like the Swan House, were designed by Neel Reid and/or Philip Shutze. One of the two did most of them, as well as many old buildings downtown, like The Ponce, the old Rich's building, and the Rhodes-Haverty Building, Boney says.

Jerry Cooper, whose firm, Cooper Carry, is architect for The Forum, pored over books containing the works of these famous architects, and determined that those old buildings they designed had a more appropriate style for the Buckhead area. Their style was Italian Renaissance, and Jerry came up with a design that looked like what those guys would have done if they were still alive, explains Boney. They really didn't design buildings; they designed places, surrounded by very formal gardens, like you see at the base of Swan House. Thus, the name Piazza; it's a place that we're developing which is much more than just the two buildings.

With its unique mix, Piazza at Paces reflects the move to new urbanism a live, work and play environment with a more suburban format. That environment will be complemented by a high-end apartment complex being developed on an adjacent five acres which was sold to The Gables Company. The two projects will share an entrance road.

An equally important, though less glamorous, component of the mix was the parking. We've put in two parking trays below grade, notes Boney. Then, above the retail [newsstand, sundries shop, car detail shop, florist, travel agency, dry cleaning, etc.] but below the office space, there will be two more trays. Their visibility has been minimized at a fairly significant expense.

The layout of parking garages has traditionally been a huge limiting factor in master-planned projects, he notes. Large condominium units require much less parking than office buildings, which greatly benefits the master plan and lessens the related traffic. Additionally, high-end office tenants and high-end home owners will also have demand for high-end restaurants and other retail amenities, which will be at the base of the buildings.

Both the Borghese and The Forum will have restaurants. Amenities for The Borghese will also include a 24-hour concierge/attendant, heated swimming pool, fitness center, a guest suite, and clubroom. All entries will be card access only.

Ease of access assured

Piazza at Paces will have another strong advantage over the competition: ease of access. When you look at Atlanta from a commercial standpoint, one of the biggest issues is ease of access, traffic and close proximity to home, says Boney. Given that there is only a very limited amount of commercially zoned land in what is already a low-density location, there's no question that this site will continue to be extremely accessible for the next 30 years. No other office development in Atlanta can make this statement.

Its I-75 location makes Piazza at Paces easily accessible for employees from all over town as well. And, if you have a regional sales facility, the ability to get out of your office and onto the interstate can be critical, says Boney. If you had to do that in Midtown or Buckhead a couple of times a day, it is difficult right now; and imagine what it will be like in 10 years.

That is our market, Boney says. Our market for office space is those tenants who live within three miles of our site and who are currently in the Midtown, Buckhead or Cumberland market who want to get out of traffic and work much closer to where they live and 75 percent of the decision-makers for companies in those areas live within three miles of this site. One of the early lessons I learned in leasing office space was: find out where the decision-maker lives.

And what's most exciting, he adds, is that this place is helping to create will be as special 20 years from now as it is today. This location will forever be unique, he asserts. You just can't replicate this land.