GLG Grand

The GLG Grand building is a 186-meter (609-foot) tall skyscraper in Midtown Atlanta. The Art Deco-inspired, pyramid-capped tower is 53 stories tall and was finished in 1992. The bottom third of it is the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, which includes 244 guest rooms and is the only 5-star hotel in Midtown. It is the ninth-tallest skyscraper in Atlanta.

This building is remarkable for several reasons. First, it was Atlanta's first mixed-use skyscraper, incorporating hotel, office and condominiums into one building. Several skyscrapers of the same type are on the drawing boards, but they have yet to break ground. Second, it was a dismal failure for its developer, G. Lars Gullstedt of Sweden, who made headlines in Atlanta in 1991 by buying up huge parcels of run-down land in Midtown and proposing a massive multi-block mixed-use development to be called "GLG Park Plaza." The GLG Grand, which took its name from Gullstedt's initials, was an unrelated development of Gullstedt's on 14th Street, several blocks north. The building opened in 1992 to a depressed real estate market, and its condominiums and office space sat largely vacant. Gullstedt, who was also a developer in Sweden, was forced into bankruptcy there, and lost control of all of his Atlanta holdings including this building. Only now, in the mid-2000s, are his former Midtown parcels beginning to be developed.

The original hotel flag flown over the GLG Grand was the Grand Occidental, which gave way to the Four Seasons in the late 1990s.

The architectural firm of the building was Rabun Hogan Ota Rasche Architects.

Education

The building is zoned to Atlanta Public Schools
* Henry W. Grady High School
* [http://www.inmanmiddleschool.org/ Inman Middle School]
* [http://www.morningsideschool.org/ Morningside Elementary School]

External links

* [http://www.fourseasons.com/atlanta/ Four Seasons Atlanta]