Troutman Sanders partner Mark Elliott and Schiff Hardin counsel Alexander Suto hashed out the details on one of the most significant new lea
ses in the Atlanta real estate market in recent memory.
The lease is for the corporate headquarters of Newell Rubbermaid Inc. and is for 355,000 square feet of space in the Two Glenlake building in Sandy Springs. Elliott represented one of the building’s developers, Greenstone Properties of Atlanta. Suto was counsel to Newell. A second developer, Granite Properties, didn’t have outside counsel, Elliott said.
The lease is significant, not only for the size of the space, but also because Newell is one of the largest public companies in the U.S., Elliott said.
“It’s a Fortune 500 company putting its footprint down in metro Atlanta,” Elliott said.
Newell Rubbermaid started moving into its new headquarters last month. It’s consolidating its offices from three separate buildings in Sandy Springs.
Elliott said he had not done much previous work for Greenstone, but was called in because he’s done a considerable amount of work “involving large leases where the building is a to-be-built facility.
“These buildings involve different challenges than an existing building,” Elliott said. “You have a lot of considerations—the design process, what the cost of the building is going to be—which you obviously don’t have with an existing building.”
Two Glenlake was built for Newell Rubbermaid. But the office building likely would have been constructed anyway, even if an agreement hadn’t been reached with Newell Rubbermaid, because of the highly desirable location, Elliott said.
When Newell moved its corporate headquarters to Atlanta from Freeport, Ill. in 2003, the Chicago law firm Schiff Hardin tagged along. Schiff Hardin opened an Atlanta office in 2003 and continues to perform much of Newell’s legal work, including corporate and patent litigation work. Newell owns dozens of brand names, including Rubbermaid, Sharpie and Calphalon.
Visible from Georgia 400, Elliott said he expects Newell Rubbermaid to have signage on the 15-story building. Two Glenlake was designed by the architectural firms Pickard Chilton and Wakefield Beasley. Pickard Chilton also designed 1180 Peachtree Street, where King & Spalding is located.
Greenstone and Granite in Aug. 2007 sold a majority stake in the Two Glenlake building to Wells Real Estate Investment Trust for about $101 million.