Enriching the Civic Landscape Through Sustainable Development

[ By Brock Harvey ]

1180 Peachtree is NAIOP’s 2006 Green Development Award winner.

It’s rare to have the opportunity to create an artistic and aesthetic masterpiece while achieving the fiscal and functional objectives of multiple clients. Hines has capitalized upon this unique opportunity in the development of 1180 Peachtree, a soaring office and retail development on the prestigious corner of 14th and Peachtree in Midtown Atlanta.

The challenges of development were met with solutions that not only satisfied the objective, but those cutting-edge solutions enhanced the design and sustainable features elevating 1180 Peachtree to an even greater achievement. 1180 Peachtree is a LEED CS-Gold certified development and NAIOP’s 2006 Green Development Award winner. In addition to this distinction, 1180 Peachtree boasts many other features that go beyond a mere solution creating an essential piece of the civic landscape.

Functional Elegance
Designed by world-class architect Jon Pickard, 1180 Peachtree is a strikingly visible icon on the Atlanta skyline. With its elegant architecture, 1180 has re-defined the city’s skyline and marks the center of the Midtown submarket. The aluminum and glass exterior compliment the lobby’s Italian marble, French limestone, bamboo and water features to create a combination of light and space that is pleasing for tenants and visitors while at the same time functional and efficient.

1180 Peachtree’s lobby of Italian marble, French limestone, bamboo groves and reflecting pools create a combination of light and space that is pleasing, functional and efficient.

1180 Peachtree, a 669,700-square-foot project, is home to King & Spalding, a prominent law firm, occupying 440,000 square feet. Other tenants include firms such as Rabobank, Russell Reynolds, Roark Capital, Navigant Consulting, Earnest Partners, Allsteel and Fish & Richardson.

1180 Peachtree presents the Midtown streetscape with 30-feet tall, glass-enclosed, public lobby areas and multi-level retail storefronts including two upscale restaurants. Trois, a French-American cuisine restaurant, overlooks the site of the new Atlanta Symphony Hall and is the newest addition to Midtown’s white-table cloth dining opportunities. At the corner of 14th and Peachtree, Tap, an upscale tavern-style restaurant, will boast a 1,500 square foot outdoor patio and dining area. Other retail uses include a high-end men’s clothier, a retail bank and a future coffee café. Particular attention has been paid to the integration of green space on the urban site. The lobby incorporates reflecting pools, black river rocks and bamboo groves in excess of 35 feet tall. 1180 Peachtree has also carefully incorporated inviting outdoor green space and public plazas around the perimeter of the building, exceeding the City of Atlanta’s requirement for open space by 35 percent. These destination restaurants, upscale retail amenities and inviting public outdoor spaces differentiate 1180 Peachtree.

The Design Challenge

1180 Peachtree has incorporated inviting outdoor green space and public plazas around the perimeter of the building, exceeding the City of Atlanta’s requirement for open space by 35 percent.

When King & Spalding began its search for a new home in 2002, there were not many land sites that could satisfy the law firm’s program requirements. 1180 Peachtree was extremely resourceful in its use of the modest 2.3 available acres of land and achieved optimal site efficiency, including a 1,200 space “invisible” parking deck. For a building of 1180’s size and scope, the site was small and extraordinarily narrow for south-eastern developments. Accommodating an efficient floor plan for King & Spalding, abundant street-level retail space to compliment the submarket’s master plan, and the required parking and green space posed challenges for the project. The challenge was leveraging every square foot of the site to enable the development’s size and scope. Hines configured 670,000 square feet of office space and a 1,200 space parking deck onto the site, while preserving its integrity and connectivity with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s future Calatrava-designed performance hall. The innovative design and planning features of 1180 Peachtree maximized the site by situating parking below the main office tower so that pedestrians are unaware of its presence.

Making room for green space and the retail and lobby frontage that currently defines the street-level presentation was another design challenge. This was accomplished by lifting the parking deck above the street level and cladding it in the same aluminum and glass skin as the office tower. Pedestrians see beautiful lobbies and offices, inviting retail shops, outdoor gardens, classic architecture that reaches down and embraces the street edge, and an urban forest lining the walkway to the future concert hall.

While the accommodations for a small lot size inevitably increased the cost of the development, Hines was able to translate the greater verticality into greater views and therefore, greater rents to support the cost increment and enhance the overall value of the asset. Throughout the leasing stabilization period, the project was able to attract prestigious clients even while commanding rents which led the market. Due in no small part to pushing the parking deck and retail underneath the office tower, the available office floors were able to offer exceptional viewlines to tenants.

As a further enhancement to showcase the views and glass curtainwall system, 1180 Peachtree is the only “spec-built” office building in the city to include 10-foot tenant ceiling heights and building corridors and 10-foot floor-to-ceiling windows as standard building features. The windows themselves are designed with high-efficiency glass to allow natural light to permeate the tenants’ workspaces but minimize the amount of UV rays entering the space. The building design allows for 81 percent natural daylighting and 100 percent of regularly occupied space to have direct lines of site to exterior windows. In addition to overcoming these design challenges, 1180 Peachtree was constructed on-budget, on-time, shattering the expectations of tenant marketability and asset value.

A Collaborative Partnership Ensures Success
Ultimately, 1180 Peachtree achieved success through collaboration with the City of Atlanta, the Midtown Alliance, Hines and its architect, Pickard-Chilton. Countless hours were spent with the stakeholders from the City of Atlanta, Midtown Alliance, the Midtown Development Review Committee, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the community at-large to solicit input for the development that would occur at Peachtree and 14th Streets, the heart of Midtown and the City of Atlanta. 

Hines sought input from GRTA and ARC to ensure that 1180 Peachtree met guidelines for a Development of Regional Impact (DRI) and incorporated measures to reduce traffic congestion by promoting alternative means of transportation.  Additionally, Hines worked closely with Midtown Alliance to ensure that 1180 Peachtree met the goals of a comprehensive master plan called Blueprint Midtown. Midtown Alliance is an organization whose membership consists of business leaders and members of the community at-large.  Blueprint Midtown guides the district’s growth, is backed by zoning laws, and is the result of a unique visioning process in which the entire community had a voice. Through the Blueprint master plan, Midtown Alliance focuses on issues that promote economic development and enrich community life -- public safety, a cleaner environment, better pedestrian passageways, less traffic and more green space.

Setting the Standard
1180 Peachtree is a landmark office development for Atlanta, if not the entire United States. Its “Main and Main” address is among the most prestigious in Atlanta but even more important, 1180 Peachtree is truly a standout in the area of environmental sensitivity. It is the first high-rise office building in the world to earn pre-certified Silver status in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Core and Shell Development program (LEED-CS) and it has since been certified at the Gold level.

Hines’ philosophy in creating this historic project was to set the standard for quality and innovation in office building development – and “being green” is a major component of this. 1180 Peachtree’s design offers environmentally sensitive and energy efficient technologies that distinguish it in the areas of architecture, quality of construction, building systems, financial stability, security and amenities.

Satisfying the Environment 1180 Peachtree’s design offers certain environmentally sensitive and energy efficient technologies that very few high-rise office buildings can match. Among the numerous steps taken along the road to Gold LEED-CS certification, the following were specifically geared toward preserving or enhancing environmental resources: Water efficiency through landscape and mechanical system design – Through the use of drought-tolerant or native plants as well as innovative design for the capture of stormwater and mechanical system condensate, 1180 Peachtree was designed to use no potable water for irrigation The project uses at least 24 percent less water than the baseline fixture performance requirements of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. All site stormwater is captured and diverted to an underground detention vault and is later used for irrigation. All condensate generated by the building’s mechanical system is captured and diverted to the vault as well. Water efficiency through plumbing fixtures – The project maximizes water efficiency within the building by reducing the burden on municipal water supply and wastewater systems through the use of low flow faucets, showers and janitor’s sinks. A reduction of 24.85 percent was achieved, equating to an annual water consumption reduction of 3.9 million gallons. Alternative transportation opportunities – In addition to 1180 Peachtree’s close proximity to the Arts Center MARTA station, the project incorporates alternative fuel refueling stations to reduce vehicle emissions, and bicycle storage and changing rooms (installed with showers) to promote alternative methods of transportation to work. Heat island effect – To reduce heat islands, 1180 Peachtree utilized roofing materials that are Energy Star compliant as well as a vegetated roof of more than 37,000 square feet. Combining these heat island reducing solutions, 76 percent of the roof area is covered by green or high albedo materials. These features significantly reduce the adverse effects of normal roofing materials on the surrounding environment as well as on human and wildlife. Use of recycled content and regionally produced materials – Overall the project utilized materials containing at least 10 percent recycled content and procured at least 20 percent of those materials locally or from the Southeast region. As a result, the amount of new resources necessary and the amount of energy resources needed to transport building materials over long distances has been reduced. Energy efficiency – The project is expected to achieve a 22.3 percent energy cost savings or $230,000 annually yielding a savings of almost $2 million over a 20-year period. Given the site constraints discussed, this is a significant accomplishment since building orientation is critical to energy efficiency. Building orientation, building envelope glazing, fins and insulated spandrel glass and the highly efficient roof insulation (to include the vegetation discussed earlier), combined with careful selection of high quality, highly efficient mechanical equipment to produce this award-winning, energy efficient and architecturally stunning building.