Five years after MARTA’s first transit-oriented development broke ground in Atlanta, the totality of how the project will look and function is coming into focus.

Columbia Ventures officials tell Urbanize Atlanta two food-and-beverage operators have signed leases for retail space in the heart of the multifaceted, 6.3-acre TOD along the southern rim of the Edgewood/Candler Park MARTA station.

The first concept is from the team behind the popular Banshee restaurant in East Atlanta Village, which has been dishing New American fare since 2018.

Dillon Baynes, a Columbia Ventures managing partner, describes the forthcoming eatery as a “fun, artisanal sandwich shop with a full alcohol license.”

The second Edgewood endeavor is by Dwight Cunningham of Cork & Cru Social events group and cofounder of the Roswell Wine Festival. Baynes describes that as a retail wine bar and wine store.  

Both concepts will set up shop in an office-retail building with a large patio that fronts a greenspace, located in the middle of redeveloped MARTA parking lots now collectively called Edgewood Park. We’ve inquired about timelines for opening the businesses and will update this story with any further details that come.

The roughly 8,000-square-foot Edgewood Park retail and office building, as seen from the transit-oriented development's greenspace. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Meanwhile, the transit hub’s final TOD phase, called Quill Apartments, is finishing construction in hopes of delivering 208 apartments—55 of them qualifying as affordable, according to MARTA—this January. Rents posted so far begin at $1,294 for 508-square-foot studios. 

That project also includes a parking deck with 152 spaces reserved for MARTA customers.

As MARTA’s first TOD, Edgewood Park could serve as a template for how underused, transit-connected surface parking can be reimagined across Atlanta. Similar MARTA-adjacent developments continue to evolve at the Avondale MARTA station and Grant Park’s King Memorial station, with others in the pipeline. 

Retro lines on the building's east face, near the MARTA station entrance. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

The retail patio fronting the park along La France Street. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Before TOD work began in Edgewood in August 2016, MARTA calculated that just 30 percent of parking spaces were being used daily.

The first component to open in 2018, a partnership between Invest Atlanta and Columbia Ventures called Spoke, brought 200 apartments, with 10 percent reserved as affordable housing. Another section includes the new spaces for Moving In the Spirit, an Atlanta-based creative youth development program.

MARTA has entered into long-term ground leases with Columbia Ventures to build the mixed-use hub, similar to other TOD partnerships. Have a closer look around the full project via this photo essay we compiled in February.

• Yikes: MARTA halts plans for developing Midtown, downtown stations (Urbanize Atlanta)