Ambitious redevelopment plans that called for a “new nexus point for the Westside” and a “lush connection point” to the Atlanta Beltline’s completed Westside Trail appear to be D.O.A.

Longstanding nonprofit organization Atlanta Mission is compiling plans for a new Beltline-adjacent campus that would include homeless support facilities and acres of new housing capped at affordable rates.  

Star Metals District developer The Allen Morris Company, a Florida-based real estate firm with a growing Atlanta presence, bought the 1060 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway property in Bankhead for $31 million in 2022. 

Allen Morris completed rezoning for the 15.5-acre site in 2024 and unveiled renderings by Miami-based Royal Byckovas architecture firm that showed a massive, multi-phase redevelopment with a range of housing and architectural nods to the site’s industrial past. 

Allen Morris officials declined comment this week. 

Now, early plans call for 8 acres reserved for a homeless housing initiative and the remaining acreage for affordable housing, as relayed during a community open house hosted by Atlanta Mission last week. 

According to meeting attendees, Atlanta Mission’s plans call for closing two shelters in the heart of downtown and Midtown and consolidating operations at the Westside property

Early plans for the 15-acre property presented during a recent Atlanta Mission community meeting at KIPP Woodson Park Academy. Submitted photo

Atlanta Mission spokesperson Rachel Reynolds confirmed to Urbanize Atlanta the organization is under contract to purchase the Bankhead property and is “focused on engaging the community” right now, including with another public open house planned Feb. 24. We’ve asked for additional information regarding a project timeline and funding sources and will update this story should that come. 

Atlanta Mission, established as a local soup kitchen in the early 1990s, today helps more than 1,000 men, women, and children throughout the city and North Georgia on a daily basis. 

The site includes four developable parcels overall, all situated just east of the Maddox Park greenspace, MARTA’s Bankhead station, and Microsoft’s ballyhooed but shelved 90-acre Westside campus development site. 

Allen Morris’ tentative Bankhead plans called for 1,600 residential units and 700,000 square feet of commercial space eventually. That would have included the adaptive-reuse remake of a 60,000-square-foot warehouse into a Beltline-fronting town center, project officials said. (Renderings depicted an observation tower with “Ironside” branding, standing over the site.)

Tiered seating along the Beltline's Westside Trail—Segment 4, per early redevelopment plans. Royal Byckovas; courtesy of The Allen Morris Company

Full scope of Allen Morris' plans for the 15.5-acre parcel at 1060 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Royal Byckovas; courtesy of The Allen Morris Company

Allen Morris officials told Urbanize Atlanta in November 2024 the first phase of construction would have focused on remaking the warehouse into a retail hub with a market, bars, and food and beverage options. Other facets nearby called for pickleball courts, public greenspaces, and bike paths on the property.

On the residential front, the initial phase included between 100 and 150 for-sale townhomes erected on a 5.5-acre section of the property next to the Beltline. Conversations with several local builders were underway as of late 2024 to get that portion off the ground. 

The bulk of living options, however, would have come in several multifamily buildings with ground-floor retail planned to rise around the town center portion in future phases, development officials previously said. 

As Beltline inclusionary zoning rules require, plans for residential development in Bankhead called for providing either 15 percent of the project’s housing units for households earning 80 percent or less of the Area Median Income, or 10 percent for residents making 60 percent AMI or less.

The site's proximity to Midtown, at right, the Bankhead MARTA station, and Westside Park. Google Maps

Much of the Donald Lee Hollowell property is vacant today, with the exception of a nonprofit facility and community organization called Village Skatepark ATL. 

Allen Morris, a national developer, is actively planning the final phases of its growing Star Metals District about two miles east of the Bankhead site. 

Elsewhere in Atlanta, the company opened the Bryn House project in North Druid Hills in 2023, and is planning another sizable Beltline-adjacent build along the Eastside Trail in Reynoldstown. 

In the gallery above, find more context and imagery for what 1060 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway was planned to be. 

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• Bankhead news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)