Another eastside industrial facility and longtime employer has bitten the dust as Atlanta surges toward a denser future to accommodate its population influx.

Like the former mattress factory that’s sprung to life as Madison Yards, or the steel plant that’s becoming Empire Communities’ Stein Steel community in Reynoldstown, the sweet-smelling Edwards Fine Foods factory that operated on Edgewood’s northern fringes for six decades has been razed and largely removed.

National homebuilder Toll Brothers began demolition in April at the 13.3-acre pie factory site, and three months later, the former Schwan’s Company-owned property is a blank slate for what’s expected to be about 700 housing units across more than 20 new buildings.

It’s another step in the densification of Edgewood’s northernmost blocks near MARTA transit and other attractions such as Pullman Yards and the Edgewood Retail District.

Plans call for a mix of apartments, condos, and townhomes to replace the factory, joining more than 400 apartments recently built on former MARTA parking lots next door.

View across the 13-acre site looking west, toward the MARTA station and downtown Atlanta. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Toll Brothers and multifamily developer Hanover have partnered to redevelop the pie factory site, which includes land on both sides of La France Street. Plans call for 24 separate structures spread across the acreage, including 450 rentals with retail at the base that renderings indicate will be branded “Hanover Eastside.” Toll Brothers’ portion will include 260 townhomes and condos.  

Rents are expected to range from $1,650 to around $3,300, officials have said. The remaining residences would be for-sale condos and townhomes ranging from $200,000 to $575,000, according to plans presented to neighborhood boards last year.

The scope of work would also include a protected bike lane on La France Street, a dog park, and at least two small publicly accessible greenspaces, per project filings. Plans call for 905 parking spaces to be spread around the property.

The vision for a remade La France Street on Edgewood's northern border. Toll Brothers; rendering, Lessard Design

The project continues an intown push—from Brookhaven to East Point and myriad points between—to locate denser housing types within walking distance of MARTA stations. The factory site is located immediately east of Columbia Ventures’ new 208-unit Quill Apartments, the final component of MARTA’s 6.3-acre redevelopment of parking lots around the transit station, collectively called Edgewood Park.

MARTA’s transit-oriented development also produced 224 apartments at the Spoke complex, offices, and forthcoming food-and-beverage concepts, with a public park in the middle.  

Jonathan Carter, Toll Brothers division president in Atlanta, said in April that construction at the Edgewood site is scheduled to begin sometime this summer, with sales opening in early 2024.  

Have a closer look at what’s to come in Edgewood, and the site’s new context, in the gallery above.  

• Neighborhood pushback kills Edgewood 'missing middle' housing proposal (Urbanize Atlanta)