Project near Beltline’s Westside Trail dangles cash perks to lure buyers

As we’ve seen recently in Old Fourth Ward, Ormewood Park, and elsewhere, substantial buyer incentives are a consistent if not growing 2025 trend among some new intown developments. 

The latest project to try the tactic is in Howell Station, a couple of blocks from the Beltline’s recently completed Westside Trail. 

Knight Walk at Howell Station, a 24-unit offering of infill duplexes, is dangling $25,000 in incentives for homebuyer contracts inked through Aug. 31. That cash can be used toward upgrades, closing costs, rate buydowns, price reductions, or prepaid HOA dues, according to project reps.  

Qualified homebuyers are also being encouraged to apply for the Community Homeownership Incentive Program, or CHIP. That offers options such as lower interest rates, flexible credit requirements, and grants of up to $10,000.

Having replaced blighted properties due west of Midtown, the 1124 West Marietta St. project is priced from $499,900 to the low $500,000s. 

The three-story Knight Walk at Howell Station floorplans include two bedrooms and two and ½ bathrooms in 1,200 square feet, according to marketing materials, which stress that “every unit is an end unit,” given the three walls with windows. All homes are clad in brick and board-and-batten siding. 

The priciest duplex (they’re all marketed as “City Homes”) listed to date costs $524,900. Several units remain to be built. 

Community perks are listed as a dog run and greenspace, covered rear decks with each home, a nearby MARTA bus stop, and walkability to Westside Paper eats. The new Westside Paper Spur Trail is also a stone’s throw away, to the east. 

Inside, each unit has 10-foot ceilings on main levels, kitchens with quartz countertops, and two bedrooms described as spacious. 

The project replaces a long-vacant row of dilapidated buildings and empty lots near the corner of West Marietta Street and Longley Avenue. The exteriors were “inspired by the neighborhood’s industrial roots and the romance of the old train depot that once stood nearby,” per marketing materials.

The Atlanta-based developer, The Middle Housing Company, prides itself on infill projects that bring “missing middle” housing options—that is, homes with larger footprints than ADUs and tiny homes, but generally lower prices than top-end options—to growing intown places. Other projects in Middle Housing Company’s portfolio include an under-construction, 10-unit townhome project along Metropolitan Parkway and cottage and duplex projects in the Bolton neighborhood, among others.  

The Howell Station project isn’t the only new housing to pop up along the West Marietta Street corridor in recent years, with more in the pipeline. Eventually. Maybe. 

A few blocks east on the same street, the area’s first condo tower—the glassy, 22-story Seven88 West Midtown—debuted 279 units in the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Remaining unsold units there more recently switched to rental housing. 

Also nearby, the QTS Data Centers expansion project calls for roughly 400 stacked multifamily units and townhomes to eventually be built along West Marietta Street, too. The data center has delivered, but so far, housing of any type has not moved forward. 

Back in 2022, Westside Paper developers floated plans for more than 300 new apartments that would rise from a current asphalt parking lot, but that also has yet to materialize. 

In the gallery above, find a closer look at Knight Walk at Howell Station and more context. 

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