Good news for Atlantans pulling for more downtown housing to help support the amenities, such as bars and restaurants, some of the city’s oldest blocks are finally producing. 

After breaking ground last fall, a project promising an injection of more than 200 multifamily residences and street-level retail has bottomed out site work and begun vertical construction in the shadow of Atlanta City Hall, as project contractor J.M. Wilkerson relayed this week. 

In planning stages for more than five years, the mixed-use Trinity Central Flats will rise where Trinity Avenue meets Shirley C. Franklin Boulevard (formerly Central Avenue), 

What’s more, the project is expected to be one of two sizable, affordable housing ventures under construction next door to each other soon. 

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.  

J.M. Wilkerson aerial depicting the beginning of vertical construction at Trinity Central Flats this week. J.M. Wilkerson Construction/IG

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

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 also in the works.

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

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.”

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.

"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

The 1.3-acre parcel in question near City Hall. Atlanta Department of City Planning/Instagram

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.

At a site immediately to the east, affordable housing developer Gorman & Company plans to break ground soon on a mixed-income, 15-story affordable housing tower as part of The Sanctuary, a $41.3-million remake of Trinity United Methodist Church’s historic campus. 

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

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