While construction officially began a week ago, city and business officials were happy to still have the ceremonious groundbreaking of a new 175,000-square-feet building being built on Sigman Road Friday afternoon. 

The new building doesn’t have a single tenant ready to move in upon construction completion as of today, but Tim Schneider, vice-president of Ashley Capital, is confident the company will be able to find renters for the building, preferably those looking to occupy at least 25,000-sq-ft. of space or the entire building.

In other business ventures, Ashley Capital, which is based in New York City but has a Conyers office at 1601 Rockdale Industrial Blvd, has rented out Conyers building space to supply companies, movie studios and a variety of other companies, said Schneider.

“(We could have) a wide range of tenants,” he said about the future building which is located directly across the street from Anthony International, 709 Sigman Rd, Conyers. 

It shows a lot of faith in the city and its growth potential when Ashley Capital starts a project without any tenants beforehand, says Conyers-Rockdale Economic Development Council Executive Director Marty Jones.

“To me, it says they believe in the community. They’re willing to put their money on the line for this building without a tenant in place,” he said. “Whoever the new tenants are going to be, they’re going to be bringing a new investment and jobs to the community.”

The building is being built on 13-acres of property and is scheduled to be complete later this year in October.

Bobby Mayson, broker for Atlanta-based Lavista Associates, says that the area is “desperately” in need of a building with class-A space, which can be defined as office space with high quality standard finishes and state of the art systems.