Midtown evictions, MARTA ridership woes, Atlanta Civic Center drama

MIDTOWN—Dozens of Atlanta residents who’ve enjoyed relatively affordable rents in the heart of cosmopolitan Midtown are scrambling to find new places to live after being informed their apartment community will permanently close in a few weeks.

Crescent Place Apartments—a three-story complex built in the 1960s with 49 units—has been the subject of development talks for years. The property came under new ownership in late April, but specific plans for redevelopment have not been announced, as Crescent Place management told 11Alive.

Residents have until July 1 to move out without being evicted. (See a copy of the lease termination letter in the gallery above, as provided by a reader.) One resident who works from home in the customer service industry told the news station that finding another one-bedroom apartment in the area for comparable rents will be impossible. "Finding anywhere in Midtown or near the city for $1,200, you're either going to live in a tiny little shed or one of the worst neighborhoods ever,” the resident told 11Alive.

Selig Development is planning to build a massive mixed-use venture called Midtown Exchange on parcels just west of the Crescent Place Apartments, on the same block. Selig officials previously said properties and businesses currently operating along Crescent Avenue wouldn’t be impacted by their project.  

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CITYWIDE—The AJC takes a look at how MARTA is trying to lure back customers to pre-pandemic levels while also grappling with staffing shortages, the prevalence of ride-hailing services, and a spigot of federal relief funds that’s being cut off.

MARTA’s bus and train ridership plummeted in early 2020 but has slowly began to return, though it remains disconcertingly low for the transit agency. In March, the number of MARTA train trips taken was just 42 percent of the same month's tally in 2019, while bus ridership had crept back to 51 percent. Nonetheless, MARTA’s interim CEO Collie Greenwood is optimistic ridership will return as people grow more comfortable using Atlanta’s main transit system again.

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OLD FOURTH WARD—The plight of the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center has taken another strange turn as New York-based developer Tishman Speyer has backed out of plans to partner with Atlanta’s H.J. Russel & Co. to transform the vacant property, as Atlanta Civic Circle first reported.

Just last month, Atlanta Housing’s board of commissioners selected Tishman Speyer to be a partner in redeveloping most of the 19-acre property—vacant since 2014—into a community with space for 1,300 residents where Old Fourth Ward meets downtown. (Some 430 of those rentals were to be deemed “affordable” by AH standards.) AH officials called Tishman Speyer’s latest development about-face in Atlanta—the company also bailed on plans to redo The Mall West End last year—a “great surprise.”