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Tech City of the South, By: Geoffrey Smith gsmith@assurancemortgage.com 770-674-1433 Alpharetta, Dusting Off 2020

For three months in early 2020, the much-envied suburban metropolis that is Alpharetta was turned into a 20-squaremile museum of how to develop an upscale small city. As the cordons are removed, and people are allowed to again play with all the city has to offer, Alpharetta is back to performing as the pre-eminent place to live, work and play in the Metro Atlanta area.

Alpharetta is unique in that it has one of the most diverse makeup of retail, office and residential uses anywhere in the Metro area. It bet big in the early 1990’s on turning Windward Parkway and Old Milton Parkway into office campus highways. And then it won big. It became a retail powerhouse in the mid 1990’s with the addition of North Point Mall. And then doubled-down with the addition of the nationally renowned Avalon, whose success has spread a full mile down Old Milton Parkway and into what is now a thriving downtown district surrounding its city hall. Surrounding all of this is a strong residential base of high-end swimand-tennis, and golf communities. And mixed in-between are highend condos, intown houses and apartments. Because of the strong diversity of uses, Alpharetta is a city with a commercial tax base so strong that it approved one of the most aggressive residential tax exemptions last year, and still has enough money to develop infrastructure throughout the city. The new infrastructure being built includes amenities that other cities only have the ability to talk about and plan for and include multiple parking decks in its downtown district, extensive sidewalk systems throughout the city and constant upgrades to its recreation and parks systems. These improvements will continue to further improve the quality of life for the residents who live there, the employees who work in the offices there, and the tourists who come to visit there. One such project underway is Alpharetta’s multi-use trail system called the Alpha Loop. This consists of a 3-mile inner loop and a 5-mile outer loop that will link Downtown Alpharetta, Avalon, and the Northwinds area located at Haynes Bridge Road and GA400. It will piggy-back off of the Big Creek Parkway – a multi-use trail that runs from its southern boarder into Roswell, along Big Creek to its northern boarder in Forsyth County.

The project has already spurred new mixed-use projects being planned by developers who see the trail as something workers and residents will want to be close to. This pandemic has certainly changed a lot in the way companies may be doing business in the future. And many have questioned how strong companies’ appetites for office space and high-end retail will be after this pandemic is over. The good news is that Alpharetta, and really the entire Metro Atlanta area, are poised much better for any major shift in office space use than others. For one, we were at all-time lows for office vacancy heading into the pandemic and developers couldn’t build new office space fast enough. And two, Atlanta has proven itself as one of the best places to locate a business in the country. For the last 10 years, they have been averaging over 60,000 new jobs every year. Even if there is some sort of push from businesses to have more employees work from home, it is highly unlikely you will see massive vacancies in Atlanta office spaces because of it. As such, Alpharetta will continue on its trajectory as one of the most admired cities in the southeast. The city now boasts more than 700 tech companies that call it home. This includes known entities like Microsoft, ADP, LexisNexis, Verizon Wireless and many others. And other lesser known large tech companies like Hi-Rez Studios, an industryleading video game developer. To help entertain all these employees and residents – as well as tourists, it has set itself up as a culinary

11800 Amber Park Drive, Suite 130 Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 Office: 678-746-2900 Email: cmiller@northfultonwills.com NORTH FULTON WILLS.COM

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destination place. Just in the halfmile between Avalon and the new city-center, there are more than 40 quality restaurants to choose from. Because of the new Hotel Avalon and its adjoining Alpharetta Conference Center, Alpharetta is now also a destination place for conferences. The conference center boasts over 44,000 square feet of flexible event space and 10,000 square feet of exhibit space. And obviously, because of Avalon and the downtown storefronts, it is a high-end retail destination place. Alpharetta’s engine is in high-gear. And rather than resting on its laurels, city leaders are focusing on parts of its city town that had fallen a little behind. With the addition of Avalon and the trend away from large, indoor malls, the city worked with North Point Mall owners to inject more life into the district. The old Sears store was torn down to make way for apartments and a park. The apartments are adding hundreds of customers within a very short walking distance to the mall. As more and more retail stores look to be in an outdoor atmosphere like Avalon, North Point Mall has converted some of its storefronts into co-working spaces and is transitioning to a place that more caters to the businesses and residents in its immediate area. The city is also working to form a plan for the North Point area that will include new multi-use trails and will in general give that area its own sense-of-place. A failing strip-center just south of the downtown district was completely demolished and is being converted into a more desirable retail and entertainment district that is walkable and vibrant. The Tech City of the South has a wide-range of bells and whistles and is using every single one to its advantage. If you want a place to live, work or play, there are few places in the country that offers the opportunities of Alpharetta.