Atlanta Mission cancels shelter plans at large Westside Beltline site

Six months after Atlanta’s biggest and oldest homeless services provider announced contentious plans for a large new shelter along Bankhead’s Beltline section, the agency has decided to move on and look elsewhere. 

Atlanta Mission is dropping plans to build a 900-bed shelter on acreage where Stars Metals District developers had planned a sprawling, mixed-use warehouse complex with Westside Trail frontage. 

The decision to pull out and cancel a contract to buy the 15.5-acre Bankhead property came after Atlanta Mission leaders met with neighbors and learned most of them oppose the agency’s plans to consolidate homeless shelters and services into one location, as Atlanta News First reports. 

The nonprofit is reportedly still focused on developing a purpose-built campus with wraparound services at another city location, though it hasn’t disclosed where that facility might be.  

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

Taryn Bell, a Westside resident and founder of Bell Liberty Group who’s acted as an opposition spokesperson this year, said neighbors support the Atlanta Mission’s work and wish it the best in finding a suitable home. 

“For Westside residents, this was never about opposition to the Atlanta Mission,” Bell wrote via email to Urbanize Atlanta. “It was about advocating for a path to economic mobility for this community, and for meaningful steps toward ending the systemic concentration of poverty these neighborhoods have long endured.

“Moving forward,” Bell continued, “we’re excited about the growth opportunities that 1060 Donald Lee Hollowell will bring, and we welcome thoughtful, catalytic development for equitable, transit-oriented growth that benefits current and future Westside residents alike.”

Atlanta Mission officials reveled in February the shelter project was tentatively set to open in 2030 at an estimated cost of $200 million. Plans called for developing roughly 7 acres of the site and selling the remaining 8 acres to a housing developer. 

Neighborhood groups who’ve pushed back against Atlanta Mission’s plans—one March meeting was held under the banner “Westside for Economic Justice”—have asked city leaders to back Allen Morris Company’s previous “market-driven, multi-use” plans, in hopes that will spur the type of economic activity that convinces retailers such as grocery stores and local retailers to set up shop. 

Allen Morris bought the Bankhead property for $31 million in 2022, when the area’s promise of fresh Beltline and a wave of tech jobs was attracting developers who typically work in investment hot zones such as Old Fourth Ward and West Midtown.   

The Florida-based developer envisioned the property becoming a mix of new housing and remade warehouses on an immense scale, eventually. The scope called for 1,600 residential units and 700,000 square feet of commercial space, to include the adaptive-reuse of a 60,000-square-foot warehouse into a Beltline-fronting town center. 

In early 2023, however, Microsoft announced its planned 90-acre Westside campus would be shelved indefinitely. The two properties in question are roughly a 1/2 mile apart. 

We’ve asked Allen Morris reps this morning if it’s possible to shed light on what next steps for the Bankhead property could be, though the company has previously declined comment regarding the site and potential Atlanta Mission deal.  

So let’s ask ATL at large: With Atlanta Mission stepping back, what should go here instead?

...

Follow us on social media: 

Twitter / Facebook/and now: Instagram  

• Bankhead news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)