CONA Services Leases Office at Atlanta's Ponce City Market

CONA Services is moving its headquarters from Midtown Atlanta to the city’s increasingly popular Old Fourth Ward.

The IT services firm inked a deal to occupy 49,000 square feet of office space at mixed-use development Ponce City Market. About 180 employees are expected to occupy the space, which will be located on the sixth floor of the building, at 675 Ponce De Leon Avenue Northeast.

CONA joins Ponce City Market’s high-profile tenants, including Pinterest, Airbus, FanDuel and Capital One. The company will exit its space at 10 10th Street in Midtown, which is owned by Union Investment.

Ponce City Market was built as a store and distribution center for Sears, Roebuck and Company in the mid-1920s.

Atlanta-based private equity group Jamestown purchased it in 2011 and restored the historic building, which reopened in 2014. Since then, Jamestown has expanded the development with additional office space and 400 units of “hospitality living,” apartments with hotel amenities.

The development includes stores, restaurants, a food hall and a rooftop amusement park.

CONA CEO Brett Findley called Ponce City Market “an iconic destination in Atlanta.” The development has also played a major role in the revitalization of Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

Atlanta’s office market woes mirror the challenges of other Sun Belt cities, where tenants are seeking amenity-filled new construction and leaving older buildings, creating massive vacancies.

Halfway through the year, vacancy in Atlanta’s office market stood at 24.7 percent, an increase from a year before, when vacancy was 23 percent, according to Partners Real Estate. Even so, the average asking rent in Atlanta is on the rise. Midway through this year, it was $30.09 per square foot, up from $29.54 a square foot a year earlier.

CONA Services provides IT services to the Coca Cola System.

Jamestown is a real estate investment manager and the firm behind projects like Chelsea Market in New York City and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.