30-acre overhaul of office campus along I-85 takes key step forward

A corporate office campus remake that could eventually bring 2,000 new residences, acres of park space, and much more to Brookhaven has taken a key step toward groundbreaking. 

Atlanta-based developer Third & Urban and capital partners HighBrook Investors announced today they’ve closed on 30 acres of assembled properties from four separate sellers at Corporate Square, setting the stage for what they describe as a $605-million investment that will be Brookhaven’s largest mixed-use district.  

Now christened “Northbend” as a nod to the nearby bend of Peachtree Creek along the site’s northern border (that beats “Corporate Yards”), the project has also received Brookhaven rezoning as a Master-Planned Development, for which a new site plan was provided today. 

The initial phase alone now calls for nearly 700 residences and more. 

The assemblage owned by Third & Urban includes eight underutilized office buildings. Plans now call for demolishing all of them to make way for an improved road network and new infrastructure.  

The multi-phase proposal could breathe new life into the long-underperforming Corporate Square office park—and its vast seas of asphalt parking—in a section of Brookhaven that city officials have pinpointed as primed for greater density and mixed-use housing. 

The Corporate Square Boulevard site, wedged between Buford Highway and Interstate 85, is situated across the interstate from the new Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Arthur M. Blank Hospital and Emory University’s planned Executive Park Healthcare Innovation District, a billion-dollar, long-term project. Third & Urban’s plans call for transforming it into a walkable district that blends retail, housing, and greenspace while catering to the area’s quickly growing employers, especially in the healthcare sector.

According to plans revealed today, Northbend’s first phase will see: 10,000 square feet of retail; 390 multifamily units, 23 rental townhomes, 119 for-sale townhomes, and 140 corporate housing units (all geared toward employees at nearby medical facilities); and a 1-acre, activated public plaza. Ten percent of phase-one rental units will be designated as affordable housing, officials said.  

Phase-one retail will lean toward food-and-beverage options in partnership with established local businesses along the Buford Highway corridor, per Third & Urban reps. 

The Northbend project will “transform an outdated, underutilized office park into a vibrant gathering place for the Brookhaven community and beyond,” Hank Farmer, a Third & Urban partner, said in the announcement. “This redevelopment is a catalyst for economic growth by bringing more housing, greenspace, retail, and connectivity to the area’s fast-growing employment center.”

Another selling point is the site’s direct connectivity to the 1.3-mile Peachtree Creek Greenway that extends north from Druid Hills Road. Future phases call for linking the multi-use trail south to the Atlanta Beltline and PATH400 through Buckhead, and north to other cities such as Doraville and Chamblee.

Northbend is scheduled for a groundbreaking in summer next year. The project’s website predicts first deliveries will come in 2028. Development leaders say it will create 400 construction jobs and 300 permanent ones, while generating $8.2 million in annual tax revenue for Brookhaven when completed. 

Third & Urban is pursuing LEED certification for the project, which upon completion will count roughly 5 acres of greenspace across the site. 

Northbend initially came to light in October last year, when Third & Urban submitted a Development of Regional Impact filing with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, a state-level requirement for projects large enough to potentially impact local municipalities.

Third & Urban is the same firm behind adaptive-reuse projects Westside Paper and Common Ground along the Beltline, and is also involved the proposed mixed-use overhaul of Bankhead MARTA station. It’s also a partner in the 8-acre Hillcrest project that broke ground earlier this month, promising a new facet for downtown Sandy Springs. 

Elsewhere in the metro, Third & Urban acquired the six-building Dunwoody Park offices last year at the Perimeter, which are currently being leased while developers weigh long-term redevelopment possibilities. Another suburban office bet for the company is Alpharetta's Georgia 400 Center. 

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