A year ago this month, the removal of a towering red crane over the Waldo’s construction site in Old Fourth Ward alarmed neighbors who feared it signaled the project was D.O.A. After all, Waldo’s at that point had been idle for more than a year.

But development officials said not to fret, as the crane was being taken down merely as a cost-saving measure while Waldo’s underwent redesigns. The site was not being abandoned, and the construction crane was expected to be erected again early this year, project heads said at the time. That didn’t happen. 

This week, Waldo’s officials again sound optimistic that the retooled, large-scale project will rev back up as construction blockades that have caused mobility headaches are removed in the meantime. Waldo’s six-story office facet was put on the backburner last year.  

Waldo’s ownership is undertaking a project redesign with a “greater residential focus” because “the office market remains unviable at this juncture,” a project official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, emailed to Urbanize Atlanta. 

A finalized project restart date has yet to be determined. 

Sidewalk and lane closures beside the idle Waldo's site in March, following deconstruction of the project's crane. Google Maps

Overview of the Waldo's site as vertical parking garage construction was underway in February 2023.

Given the site’s dormancy, the Atlanta Department of Transportation and city officials have been working to open a traffic lane of Boulevard that’s long been closed for construction. The sidewalk along Waldo’s Boulevard block is expected to remain closed for the foreseeable future. 

“Ownership is sensitive to mitigating inconvenience to the neighborhood during this transition and is working to move barricades to reopen a lane,” wrote the project official. 

“Millions of dollars of equity have already been invested to build and complete the 275-space underground parking garage," the emailed statement continues. "This investment, though substantially more expensive than a traditional above-grade garage, fosters a more pedestrian, green, and scalable environment for future development.”

Prior to redesigns, the planned look of Waldo's facades along Boulevard, as released several years ago. (Not shown is a newly built boutique building for retail with residential above at the corner.) Courtesy of Lucror Resources; designs, TVS

Optimism for Waldo’s was high prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but years of turbulence and delays have followed. Its developer, Lucror Resources, is best known for the adaptive-reuse reimagining of downtown’s FlatironCity building. An official with Waldo’s Stream Realty leasing team tells Urbanize Atlanta that company is no longer closely involved with the project. 

At a festive, ceremonial groundbreaking in November 2019, Waldo’s leadership previewed a mix of 190 hotel rooms, office space, retail, and townhomes along Boulevard, just south of Edgewood Avenue, that would help fill the gap of major new investment between the Beltline’s Eastside Trail and downtown.

The project has since grappled with delays related to the pandemic, a bizarre wall collapse next door, and rising construction costs, officials have said.

Nonetheless, work on Waldo’s started in earnest in summer 2021; by the early months of 2023, vertical construction on the $20-million, underground parking structure was clearly underway. 

The Waldo’s hotel component was initially expected to be the country’s first Motto, but lodges under that brand have since opened in Washington D.C., New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, Bentonville, Arkansas, and elsewhere. Another hotel project associated with Motto is now in the works for an empty West Peachtree Street site in downtown Atlanta.

Townhome facades that would comprise the backside of Waldo's, tucked away from Boulevard. Courtesy of Lucror Resources; designs, TSW

The Waldo's site in the context of Edgewood Avenue businesses and Old Fourth Ward blocks. Google Maps

Elsewhere on the site, plans call for a row of nine townhouses along Daniel Street. Like the rest of the project, those residences have bases in place but haven’t risen above street level.

The project’s 1.5-acre lot was formerly home to a small corner grocery store and a few trees. Waldo’s unconventional name is a nod to transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Before it was scrapped, Waldo’s mass-timber office building called for a 119,000-square-foot, six-story office structure to stand where Boulevard meets Gartrell Street.  

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