Atlanta Civic Center development sets groundbreaking—at long last!

Following more than a decade of scrapped plans, dashed hopes, and design alterations, one of the last massive development sites left in central Midtown and downtown Atlanta will finally see actual construction soon, project leaders announced today. 

Officials with Atlanta Housing, owners of the long-dormant Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, have scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for the first building in what’s slated to be a multi-phase transformation of the landmark Old Fourth Ward property. 

The “milestone” event will mark the construction kickoff for a 148-unit apartment building reserved for low-income seniors expected to cost $60 million, per Atlanta Housing officials. 

Permitting paperwork filed with the city has indicated the first building will rise on the northeast section of the Civic Center property, across the street from Renaissance Park, and will include a 1,642-square-foot retail café space and parking deck. The one-bedroom rentals will each be roughly 600 square feet, per earlier filings. 

Atlanta Housing, which acquired the Civic Center property in 2017, says the first apartments are scheduled to be available onsite in the third quarter of 2027. No timeline for development beyond the first building has been specified. 

Big picture, plans call for remaking the 19-acre site in the shadows of both downtown and Midtown into a vibrant mixed-use hub with walkability to transit, parks, and other perks. 

Eventually, plans call for 1,500 mixed-income apartments alongside a grocery store, hotel, retail, communal spaces, and offices. The historic 1960s Performing Arts Center building, a cornerstone of the property, will be preserved, but its exact future use hasn’t been determined. 

Alongside Atlanta Housing president and CEO Terri M. Lee, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, Invest Atlanta president and CEO Dr. Eloisa Klementich, and other officials are scheduled to lead the Tuesday groundbreaking. 

Atlanta Housing is partnering on the Civic Center job with developers The Michaels Organization, Sophy Capital, and Republic Properties Corporation. That partnership, at this point, has been in place for more than three years. 

For more than a year, fencing around the Civic Center site has been wrapped in rendering-heavy banners with “The Excitement is Building” messaging, though no substantial work had started. 

The Civic Center, a New Formalist landmark, was designed by Harold Montague of Robert & Co. and opened in 1965 as a home base for arts in the city. Positioned along the western edge of Old Fourth Ward, the building has hosted the Metropolitan Opera, Theater of the Stars, Atlanta Opera, and more recently television shows such as Steve Harvey’s Family Feud. 

But it’s been empty and idle, apart from some concerts and events, since 2014.

In 2016, Texas developer Weingarten Realty abandoned efforts to singlehandedly transform the Civic Center site into a mixed-use utopia with some 650 housing units and a Publix grocery. 

Two years later, preservation group Historic Atlanta led a push to ensure historically significant structures on site—including the 4,600-seat auditorium, with what’s thought to be Georgia’s largest stage—weren’t destined to be razed. Today, entrances to that Performing Arts Center and an adjacent Exhibition Hall are anchored by a formal plaza and fountain that “continue the tradition of cultural institutions serving as both an iconic landmark and public amenity for urban residents,” as Atlanta Housing has described the property layout.

In summer 2022, the Civic Center’s plight took another strange turn when New York-based developer Tishman Speyer backed out of plans to partner with Atlanta’s H.J. Russel & Co. to transform the property.

By all indications, such letdowns could be ancient history for this key intown property now. We'll see. 

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