King & Spalding lawyers leave for new firm
Welcome to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor Chris Fuhrmeister, bringing you the business news to keep you in the know. Here's a selection of our top stories this week.
The country’s largest certified women-owned law firm, Hilgers Graben, has picked up a team of lawyers from Atlanta-based King & Spalding.
Rose Hunter Jones will head Hilgers Graben's global electronic discovery practice group. Jones brings along Nicole Bass and Katherine Webb Rich, who are now partners at Hilgers Graben, in addition to Lindsey Brady and Meredith Perlman, who are senior counsel at the firm.
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Asbury Automotive Group paid $12.5 million for its new Sandy Springs office, about 14% less than the property sold for almost a decade ago.
Asbury, an automotive retailer, announced last month it would buy the Newell Brands Inc. headquarters on Peachtree Dunwoody Road. Asbury is relocating from Duluth.
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Portillo’s, the popular Illinois-based quick service restaurant, will open its first location in Georgia next year.
The restaurant will serve up its signature Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, french fries, chocolate cake and shakes in Kennesaw.
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Invest Atlanta is working with a real estate team to fill the 2 Peachtree tower, rising 40-plus stories, with approximately 600 residential units, retail and renovated office space. The project would add more than 200 affordable apartments on the doorstep of MARTA’s Five Points station.
Executing that vision won’t be cheap. Office-to-residential conversion is costly and complex. The city's economic development arm estimates that the 2 Peachtree redevelopment could cost $400 million, a rough estimate that is subject to change.
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New York-based Compass Inc. has negotiated a deal to acquire the brand luxury brokerage Christie’s International Real Estate, an acquisition that will impact more than 100 affiliates around the globe and thousands of agents across the U.S. The brokerages will remain independent as part of the deal.
Atlanta-based Ansley Real Estate Christie’s International is one of these agencies. The brokerage has been a part of Christie’s affiliate network since 2022.
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Atlanta developer Portman Holdings has finished construction on Ten Twenty Spring in Midtown. The 530,000-square-foot office building ascends 25 stories over the Downtown Connector, offering a future tenant prominent signage from one of the most-traveled corridors in the city.
With hotel-like design features in one of Atlanta’s most sought-after markets, the building will test whether companies motivated to have employees working more days in the office are willing to pay for the nicest and newest workspaces in walkable areas rich with amenities.
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Newmark Group Inc. has landed key members of a well-known office property sales team from rival CBRE Group Inc., just as deal volume shows signs of picking up steam.
Jay O’Meara, Justin Parsonnet and Ryan Reethof have joined Newmark to lead office investment sales in the Southeast, including Atlanta; Nashville, Tennessee; Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina; and Florida. O’Meara and Parsonnet will serve as vice chairmen, and Reethof as senior managing director.
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Chick-fil-A's Dwarf House restaurant on Pleasant Hill Road will close, but something new will take its place.
The Duluth restaurant will shut down Feb. 28, 2025. The closure will lead to the loss of 112 jobs: four assistant managers and 108 team members. However, those numbers are subject to change as workers seek and potentially accept positions at other Dwarf House restaurants, Bruno said.
A representative from Chick-fil-A said the Pleasant Hill site will be remodeled to make way for a new Chick-fil-A restaurant.
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A fast-growing Savannah suburb may land thousands of new homes over the next two decades.
A roughly 4,500-acre planned unit development is slated to take shape in unincorporated Bryan County. The development would rise just outside the city limits of Richmond Hill, a town about 20 miles southwest of Savannah’s riverside historic district.
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The restaurant posted a statement on its website paying tribute to Harden, who was known as “Mama” around the neighborhood.
Just a few weeks ago, on Nov. 17, rappers Michael "Killer Mike" Render and Clifford "T.I." Harris reopened the historic eatery in Westside's Grove Park neighborhood. Bankhead Seafood had closed in 2018 after half a century under Harden’s stewardship. Render and Harris partnered with late Columbia Residential founder Noel Khalil to buy the restaurant after it closed.
That's all for this week's top stories. Thanks for reading Atlanta Business Chronicle! Questions? Comments? Concerns? News tips? Send them to cfuhrmeister@bizjournals.com.