In a case of life imitating art, Atlanta’s tallest building stands half empty a year after becoming the city’s costliest foreclosure. The story of the troubled Bank of America Plaza echoes that of Croker Concourse in Tom Wolfe’s novel A Man in Full and is regarded by many as symptomatic of the South’s economic decline.
The imposing tower is built in the Art Deco style of the Empire State Building, perhaps reflecting the optimism that surrounded its construction in the heady years of the early nineties. Four years later Atlanta invited the world to ‘Come Celebrate Our Dream’ as the city hosted the 1996 Olympic Games.
Today that dream appears hollow as the economic crash has led to tenants abandoning the 55 storey symbol of Atlanta’s commercial real estate boom. This leaves around 50 per cent of its 1,253,500 sq ft of office space unoccupied.
While the Peachtree Street building is not the only casualty of the recession, the parallels between its current problems and those surrounding the commercial development at the centre of Wolfe’s story are unmistakeable.
A Man in Full was published in 1998 and the launch of the sprawling novel, set in late twentieth century Atlanta, has been described as ‘the biggest single event in the city’s cultural life since the world premiere of Gone with the Wind in 1939.’
The book immediately captured the imagination of Atlantans who embraced the entrepreneurial central character, Charlie Croker, who was seen to embody the Atlanta spirit of progress at any price.
At the outset of the novel Croker, a sixty year old commercial real estate developer, appears to be the epitome of the Georgia ‘good ole boy’ who has worked hard and come out on top. He has a home in fashionable Buckhead, a 29,000 acre plantation, a private jet and a wife half his age. However, his gilded life is about to unravel due to a badly misjudged investment.
Ignoring the importance of location in commercial property development, Croker has borrowed heavily to realise his dream of building a monument to himself on the edge of town. The success of Croker Concourse depends on the anticipated next wave of suburban expansion that never arrives, leaving the building practically empty and the banks seeking foreclosure.
The rest of the book sees Croker desperately trying to avoid the inevitable collapse of his business empire while the investment banker chasing him plots to profit from his misfortune. Along the way he is dragged into the racial politics that are a legacy of the South’s history.
In a wider sense A Man in Full can be read as a satire on Atlanta’s obsession with development and expansion and a warning of what might happen if the city’s ambition outstrips its means to achieve those dreams.
The difficulties now facing the Bank of America Plaza are perhaps a reminder of this. Henry Lorber, a distressed real estate expert with Atlanta firm Hays Financial Consulting, told the Covington News there is a shortage of ‘big-fish tenants’ searching for large blocks of office space in the city.
“I still don’t know how to attract tenants to this building,” he said. “Their choice appears to be to gut prices or turn it into a Taj Mahal.”
Charlie Croker, who despaired at the sight of his vast empty car park, would no doubt sympathise.
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