In heart of downtown, affordable housing block finally barreling ahead

Infrastructure work across a corner in the shadow of Atlanta City Hall should be an encouraging sign for downtown affordable housing advocates.

Mixed-use project Trinity Central Flats—in the pipeline since the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic—is fully under construction where Trinity Avenue meets Shirley C. Franklin Boulevard (formerly Central Avenue), among some of downtown’s oldest blocks.

Should developers’ plans pan out, the project will be one of two sizable, affordable housing ventures under construction next door to each other this year.

Trinity Central Flats calls for retail space and more than 200 apartments reserved as affordable housing rising from the long-vacant but centrally located corner.

Infrastructure work underway for Trinity Central Flats at the southeast corner of Trinity Avenue and Shirley C. Franklin Boulevard on Jan. 17. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

The vacant 1.3-acre site's context downtown. City of Atlanta/Invest Atlanta

At a site immediately to the east, affordable housing developer Gorman & Company plans to break ground this spring on a 16-story affordable housing tower as part of The Sanctuary, a $41.3-million remake of Trinity United Methodist Church’s historic campus.

That project will include 89 mixed-income units, Gorman officials told Urbanize Atlanta last year.

For the public-private Trinity Central Flats project, the Invest Atlanta Board of Directors last summer approved a revised amount of more than $90 million (up from a previous $72 million) to cover development costs, including $45 million in tax-exempt bond financing.

Trinity Central Flats is expected to take two years to build, putting its projected opening in roughly late 2027, according to Invest Atlanta.

In addition to 218 apartments, the 104 Trinity Ave. project calls for 7,500 square feet of retail space facing Atlanta City Hall and the boulevard, to help activate the downtown corner. According to Invest Atlanta, all of the units will be offered at below-market rates, capped for renters earning 80 percent of the Area Median Income or less. The vast majority—193 apartments total—will be reserved at either 50 or 60 percent AMI, officials have said.

No resident will be required to pay more than 30 percent of their income, as Atlanta Housing’s HomeFlex vouchers will be available for supportive housing units.

According to plans filed with the city in 2023, the 10-story, brick-and-precast project will top out at 123 feet tall. A bicycle storage room with exterior access, an arts and crafts room, a computer lab, a gym, a laundry facility, and other communal spaces are in the works.

The sloping, 1.3-acre corner site had been vacant and fenced-off for well over a decade. The apartments will be within walking distance of South Downtown, Underground Atlanta, and three MARTA stations, as city officials have noted in calling it one of Atlanta’s “most convenient locations.”

The Atlanta City Council voted unanimously in spring 2021 to offload the corner parcel for $1 to Invest Atlanta.

Fleshed-out depiction of the Trinity Central Flats proposal, rising 10 stories from the corner and linked to an existing parking garage. Invest Atlanta/Trinity Central Flats

Trinity Central Flats construction on the long-dormant corner site this month. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Project leaders are Radiant Development Partners and Capitol Hill Neighborhood Development Corporation, a longstanding ecumenical ministry comprised of three churches downtown (Central Presbyterian, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and Trinity UMC).

The development team was picked in December 2021 following a public selection process. Elsewhere in Atlanta, Radiant is a partner in a Beltline-adjacent project with an affordable housing component near Lindbergh.

Designs by architecture firm SSOE Group also call for an 18,000-square-foot urban garden atop a connected, existing parking deck next door—and the largest solar array on any multifamily building in Georgia, officials have said. The green, sustainable facets are expected to reduce energy use in the building’s common areas by 30 percent, bringing down residential utility bills in the process.

The Trinity Avenue property will remain under Invest Atlanta’s ownership and be leased for 99 years instead of sold outright.

That arrangement, as city officials said in 2021, is meant to help developers “achieve deeper, longer-term affordability for residents and local businesses by saving millions of dollars otherwise spent on land acquisition in a traditional property sale.”

In the gallery above, find more imagery and context for the under-construction Trinity Central Flats.

"Residents will be able to enjoy an 18,000-square foot roof garden on the parking deck," the design team previously said. The parking deck will also feature a Solar Harvesting Area.SSOE Group