Financial services company Smith Barney will relocate from the Atrium One building downtown to a space of nearly 19,000 square feet at Cornerstone. Smith Barney joins major tenants Lincoln Financial Advisors, Robert W. Baird & Co., Gold's Gym and smaller medical tenants to make the building nearly 85 percent leased.

Developer Ackermann Group also is "far along in the lease process" with other businesses that would anchor a second office tower, Ackermann partner John Wendt said.

"We will break ground before the end of the year," Wendt said. "All class A office space is a little soft, but it seems this location is a hot spot."

Ackermann is tinkering with design changes that would add another floor of office space to the second building. Initial plans called for a five-story building with 120,000 square feet of office, but Wendt said demand may warrant a sixth floor of 24,000 square feet.

Another developer is planning two other major office buildings on the eastern side of Interstate 71 at the Smith-Edwards Road interchange.

Developer Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate and the city of Norwood are seeking to buy five single-family homes through eminent domain to clear a site for the $125 million Rookwood Exchange retail-office development. A Hamilton County jury Friday ruled that Norwood and the developer could buy the first of five holdout homeowners for $233,000.

Smith Barney's move was prompted in part by Convergys Corp.'s purchase last year of the Atrium One building. Aided with a city-state incentives package of nearly $200 million, Convergys plans to renovate the office tower.

It will consolidate its 1,700-person headquarters there.

Convergys also is forcing a move for Cincinnati Bell, which employs 1,800 downtown workers at the Atrium One and the adjoining Atrium Two building as well as two other downtown locations.

Bell already has moved an undisclosed number of sales jobs to Convergys' Norwood call center temporarily, a Bell spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, Bell is seeking a new office space for its downtown workforce because it must move out of Atrium One by the end of 2005. Cincinnati Bell has not yet committed to a new downtown site, but the state of Ohio has offered $550,000 to Bell if it spends $10 million to establish a downtown office of at least 700 employees.

Bob Ryan and Mike Hartmann of Colliers Turley Martin Tucker handled lease negotiations for Cornerstone. Fred Macke of Grubb & Ellis West Shell Commercial represented Smith Barney.

E-mail kalltucker@enquirer.com