In Septemeber, downtown business development group Central Atlanta Progress named it to its list of Top 10 "development opportunities," blighted buildings and properties in need of help.

Invest Atlanta is looking for developers who will renovate the building and lease about 35,000-square-feet back to the Atlanta Office of Buildings for city use and another 2,000-square-feet at street level for the city’s planning office. But the organization also will take proposals from developers who will renovate it with other uses in mind.

When asked if there have been other attempts to renovate the property, Mayor Kasim Reed’s office said his focus has been on stabilizing the city’s finances and that he could not speak about what may have been done by previous administrations.

“Downtown Atlanta is experiencing a resurgence, and the south downtown neighborhood specifically is experiencing a transformation,” a spokeswoman said in an email. “These conditions make now the right time to move the property at 143 Alabama to market, and the city is excited about the possibilities for best-in-class adaptive reuse projects.”