Cousins and Myers Sign KPMG to 90,000-Square-Foot Lease at 55 Second Street.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 8, 2003

Deal backfills 57 percent of Cable & Wireless space and gives KPMG 

naming rights to the two-year-old office tower

Cousins Properties Incorporated (NYSE:CUZ) and Myers Development Company announced today that KPMG, one of the world's leading audit and tax firms, has leased 90,000 square feet at 55 Second Street, a 26-story, 379,000-square-foot office building in San Francisco's Financial District. The lease fills more than half of the 158,000 square feet that was previously leased to Cable & Wireless Internet Services Inc. and brings the building to 78 percent leased. In February, the Cousins/Myers partnership, which developed and owns the building, agreed to terminate Cable & Wireless' lease for a $20 million termination fee.

The deal - the year's second largest relocation in San Francisco's Financial District - also awards building naming rights to KPMG, which intends to relocate 600 employees to the building in the fourth quarter of 2004. Once the firm occupies its space, the building's name will change to "The KPMG Building."

"With a number of factors working against the office market right now, we are very pleased to have made this deal with a firm like KPMG," said Craig Jones, president of Cousins' Office Division. "In addition to immediately enhancing an already impressive group of companies that call 55 Second Street home, the KPMG lease backfills a large portion of the Cable & Wireless space more quickly than anticipated."

Todd Saunders, executive vice president of Myers, added, "The KPMG Lease at 55 Second is continued evidence of two important forces at work in the San Francisco office market: the fact that the traditional lines between the north and south financial districts are gone and that there continues to be a steady flight to quality in the marketplace. We're pleased to benefit from both of these forces."

Erich Sengelmann of Jones Lang LaSalle led the lease negotiations for KPMG and Philip Tippett of CB Richard Ellis represented Cousins and Myers in the transaction.

Myers Development Company has developed over $950 million of real estate in California and Hawaii since 1974 including office building, resort hotel, golf course, residential condominium, single family subdivision, retail and industrial properties.

Cousins Properties Incorporated, headquartered in Atlanta, has extensive experience in the real estate industry, including the development, acquisition, financing, management and leasing of properties. The property types that Cousins actively invests in include office, retail, medical office and land development projects. The Company's portfolio consists of interests in 13.9 million square feet of office and medical office space, 2.1 million square feet of retail space and more than 300 acres of strategically located land for future commercial development. Cousins also provides leasing and management services to third-party investors; its client-services portfolio comprises 6.3 million square feet of office space. Cousins is a fully integrated equity real estate investment trust (REIT) that has been public since 1962 and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CUZ." For more information please visit www.cousinsproperties.com.

Certain matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws and are subject to uncertainties and risks, including, but not limited to, general economic conditions, local real estate conditions, the activity of others developing competitive projects, the cyclical nature of the real estate industry, the financial condition of existing tenants, interest rates, the Company's ability to obtain favorable financing or zoning, environmental matters, the effects of terrorism, the failure of assets under contract for sale to ultimately close and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 8-K filed on March 9, 2001. The words "believes," "expects," "anticipates", "estimates" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that its plans, intentions and expectations reflected in any forward-looking statement are reasonable, the Company can give no assurance that these plans, intentions or expectations will be achieved. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and speak as of the date of such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of future events, new information or otherwise.