Pete Wellborn’s unique West Midtown Atlanta office is the exception that proves the new rule for the office sector’s recovery.
One would have to be a real estate Rip Van Winkle to not have heard the nearly constant coverage about the struggles of the office sector in the past few years. Maybe you think the property type is indeed down for the count, but you haven’t seen Pete Wellborn’s office in West Midtown Atlanta.
“When you spend the most waking hours at the office you should make it a place to be, make it somewhere you love to be,” said Wellborn, the founding partner at Wellborn, Wallace & Mullman, LLC, a more than 20-year-old law firm specializing in internet law, intellectual property and commercial litigation. “I’m probably the happiest person you’ll meet. I love coming to work.”
Represented by Pollock Commercial, Wellborn & Wallace committed to 5,000 square feet of space at Inland Tract, an adaptive reuse project located on the southern edge of Atlanta’s “Upper Westside.” At the time in 2019, Wellborn was looking for an alternative to the high-rise experience and congestion of the urban core, opting for creative office space, which the Atlanta Business Chronicle called “a relatively new segment for the office real estate sector in Atlanta [that] is diversifying beyond the traditional reflective glass buildings and towers that dominate much of its skyline.”
An award-winning attorney, Wellborn takes creative office to a whole new level, designing his unique place of business “down to the inch.” The Macon Room is dedicated to his Central Georgia hometown and full of mementos and artifacts. In Wellborn’s office, you’ll find his sledgehammer, the symbolic weapon of choice in a career spent battling purveyors of spam. And a sizeable part of the law firm feels like an interactive sports museum, including display lockers, a putting green and the personal office of Bill Curry, the former head football coach at Alabama and Georgia Tech (where he coached Wellborn) and member of the first-ever Super Bowl champs, the Green Bay Packers.
There’s never a dull moment at Wellborn’s office. More importantly, the extra effort in selection and design of such a space breeds extra effort by those who work there. A creative office is a place where employees feel free and stimulated, which brings out their best work. Somewhere you love to be, as Wellborn said, sounds like a quality and creative cure for the office sector.