Kimley-Horn has signed a lease for a new Atlanta office, putting the Raleigh, North Carolina-based engineering, planning and design firm on the fifth floor of Galleria 300 in Cumberland. The move gives the company, which counts more than 11,000 employees nationwide, an additional foothold in the metro area alongside its existing Atlanta Midtown office.
News of the lease was first reported by CoStar, which confirmed that Kimley-Horn’s new space sits on the fifth floor of Galleria 300, part of what the outlet described as Piedmont Realty’s repositioned mixed-use campus known as Galleria on the Park.
Kimley-Horn is no stranger to the region. Its Midtown Atlanta office has handled full-site design for the NCR global headquarters and land development and design work for Truist Park, according to Kimley-Horn, which also operates more than 150 offices across the United States and Canada. The firm additionally maintains an Alpharetta office.
Inside the Repositioned Galleria Campus
Galleria on the Park has undergone a dramatic transformation under Piedmont Office Realty Trust, which the real estate advisory firm JLL describes as repositioning five previously disconnected buildings into a single, cohesive, amenity-rich workplace. Piedmont completed its purchase of two of those buildings, Galleria 400 and Galleria 600, back in August 2019, and has continued investing in the campus since.
Piedmont’s own case study puts the campus at 2.2 million square feet spread across 20 acres, while a 2023 Piedmont investor release described it as a 2.1 million-square-foot complex comprising five office buildings and three development sites. A 2020 Bisnow report described a 9,000-square-foot fitness club at Galleria 300; the complex is within walking distance of The Battery.
A Leasing Turnaround Years in the Making
The transformation has translated into real leasing momentum. JLL credits the repositioning effort with generating 100 leases within 14 months and lifting occupancy from 65% to more than 94%, while rental rates climbed 35% over five years and reached a 15% premium over competing properties. Piedmont CEO Brent Smith has pointed to a broader shift driving that demand, telling Bisnow that companies are increasingly moving away from downtown urban office settings toward suburban complexes offering walkable, urban-style amenities.
Piedmont’s case study states occupancy reached 90% in 2023, up from 79% in 2021. A 77,000-square-foot lease with GE Vernova ran through 2036.
Other Tenants Betting on Cumberland
Kimley-Horn isn’t the only company recently drawn to the campus. Authority Brands signed a 47,835-square-foot new lease at Galleria 200 during the first half of 2026 and is relocating its headquarters from Maryland to Galleria on the Park, with plans to add 390 jobs over the coming years, according to a quarterly market report from Partners Real Estate. The same report notes that metro Atlanta leasing activity totaled 4.7 million square feet through the first half of 2026, an 11.0% increase year over year.
That report also shows 303,731 square feet of total positive net absorption in Atlanta in the second quarter of 2026 and, separately, 394,745 square feet of net absorption in suburban Atlanta. Gross asking rents climbed to $33.52 per square foot, a 4.5% year-over-year increase and a new market high, even as the overall vacancy rate declined 50 basis points year over year to 26.4%.
The broader market remains far from fully healed. Nearly one-third of all metro Atlanta office space was either vacant or being shopped around as sublease space at the end of last year, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which also reported on other engineering firms navigating that landscape. OA Development recently signed a nearly 102,000-square-foot renewal in Gwinnett County, while Pond Co., the largest tenant at the Peachtree Ridge building, chose to remain in its existing headquarters without downsizing.
