Kennedy Wilson, Shimizu partner on $139M Atlanta rental play

Kennedy Wilson and Shimizu Corporation are developing Caldwell, a 382-unit rental community on a former UPS office site in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a $139 million bet that suburban office land can become apartments by 2028. Kennedy Wilson acquired the 6.9-acre parcel at 35 Glenlake Parkway NE in late 2025 and started demolition this summer, with first residents expected in 2028.

The five-story building will hold 382 residences averaging 937 square feet and more than 17,500 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities, with New South Construction as general contractor and Dynamik Design as architect. John McCullough of Kennedy Wilson describes the plan as putting an underused office property to work as housing in one of the Atlanta metro's most desirable submarkets. What is changing is the land's use, not the structure's bones; with a 2028 delivery target, the construction schedule runs roughly two years.

The venture is Kennedy Wilson's first development partnership with Shimizu and its first multifamily project in Georgia, landing as the firm pushes into third-party capital. Jaime Lee, the former Jamison CEO, was hired this month to lead global capital formation for a $37 billion platform built on the bet that Kennedy Wilson's Los Angeles housing experience can travel. The Shimizu JV looks like an early test of that thesis, though the announcement does not say whether Shimizu is supplying equity, construction capacity, or both; the financial split is undisclosed, leaving outside observers unable to see where the risk sits.

The project fits the narrow end of the office clearing trade — the slice this publication has argued would price first: a clean suburban site in a strong submarket with a delivery date far enough out for the market to catch up. The public framing, underused office land becoming needed housing, is exactly the story a firm courting outside investors wants to tell. The math is unforgiving. At roughly $364,000 a unit, the $139 million budget is a bet that Sandy Springs rents keep climbing through 2028, and at that price the project leaves no margin for a soft market.

The market will answer when the first leases open in 2028. If Atlanta rents have softened by then, the project carries a two-year wait for the first rent checks — that is the risk of the office-to-apartment trade: the ground under a tired office building is worth more as apartments only if the market agrees by the time the keys turn. For now, the $139 million budget is the only hard number in the deal.