Delays, Liens Threaten Buckhead Atlanta

Some dark clouds of uncertainty may be descending upon Buckhead Atlanta.

OliverMcMillan’s $1 billion retail behemoth that turned the Buckhead Village into a hotspot for real estate investors may be losing one of its most promising retailers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. Worse, OliverMcMillan has contractors breathing down its neck for alleged unpaid work.

Spanx, who was at one time considering a flagship store beneath its offices in the development, decided to scale back its involvement in the project and abandoned the flagship store idea in March, according to earlier Patch reporting.

Spanx CEO Jan Singer said during a January speech before the Buckhead Business Association that the flagship store was still on track, but Tomorrow’s News Today Atlanta reports that the decision to abandon the project had been made months before.

The AJC report says that the Spanx flagship project is not entirely off the table, but says it has been delayed and could be abandoned in its entirety.

Furthermore, contractors have stopped working on American Cut, a highly-anticipated steakhouse originally slated to open this year, due to not being paid for prior work, the AJC says.

OliverMcMillan told the AJC that liens and other delays are common in large projects such as Buckhead Atlanta, and is working with all its partners to get payments distributed and liens removed. There are some $3.2 million in liens outstanding, the AJC said.

Despite the issues, Buckhead Atlanta has rejuvenated the area and turned it into the hub of real estate development in Atlanta. Earlier this month, JLB Partners closed on the purchase a three acre tract near the St. Regis Hotel with plans of turning the space into a mixed-use development anchored by a residential tower with street-level retail due to the property’s location on West Paces Ferry.

A study completed last year by the Bleakely Advisory Group reports that the Peachtree Road Corridor is home to three fifths of the city’s jobs, 70 percent of the city’s tech jobs, and generates $87 billion for the city’s economy. According to the study, the corridor directly supports more than 240,000 jobs and almost 340,000 jobs in other locales.