Developers mum on big proposals near finished BeltLine sections

When it comes to reader requests for development updates, two of the biggest hits in recent years share a few commonalities: Both projects stand to benefit from proximity to finished BeltLine sections. Both would deliver a substantial dose of new housing on derelict industrial properties. And both have pretty much gone dormant—at least publicly—since 2022.

Should they come to fruition as planned, the block-altering developments would delivery nearly 500 more housing options to neighborhoods on the flipside of downtown—Reynoldstown and Oakland City—within a few steps of the BeltLine.

Multiple requests for updates submitted this month to development teams behind both projects were not returned. But other clues suggest neither should be counted out.

Here’s a quick rundown:

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Reynoldstown

Address: 930 Mauldin St. SE

Scope, at last check: 142 apartments in six stories, with three slots for retail totaling 2,700 square feet, facing both the Eastside Trail and the street; a new public-accessible greenspace; 167 parking spaces, or one per bedroom.

Expected delivery: Unspecified

Back in summer 2022, developers Metzger & Co. shared a revised, Perkins & Will-designed development vision with Reynoldstown neighbors for a vacant industrial property 930 Mauldin St.—one of the last large development sites left along Reynoldstown’s section of the BeltLine. (Years prior, two proposals by the same developer at the site never moved forward. One was killed by the Great Recession’s economic collapse, the other by fervent neighborhood pushback.)

But as blocks around the property have transformed with new housing, including standalone homes, condos, and townhomes, the Metzger & Co. venture has yet to take off.

A source tells Urbanize Atlanta the developer is still slowly moving forward, recently updating a site survey and conducting subsurface testing.

City of Atlanta building records show no recent activity for the Mauldin Street address.

According to LoopNet, the 1.3-acre site is home to a 31,000-square-foot industrial building now. It last sold for $2.2 million back in 2006—a pittance by today’s standards for Eastside Trail-adjacent acreage.

Quick history: Back in 2008, the BeltLine and Atlanta City Council approved a three-story, 108-unit building that Metzger & Co. had brought to the table, but it never went forward. Eight years later, the developer pitched a larger project with 40 more apartments and about twice the height. City officials and neighborhood leaders vocally criticized that proposal’s lack of affordable housing, how it didn’t interface well with the BeltLine, and for what they called poor construction meant for a 20-year life cycle. A rezoning application was unanimously rejected at an NPU meeting, and the project fizzled.

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Oakland City

Address: 840 Woodrow St. SW

Scope, at last check: 301 apartments and 25 townhomes, plus roughly 20,000 square feet of commercial space in two buildings; 450 parking spaces.

Expected delivery, as of 2022: December 2024

Around Thanksgiving 2022, developers seemed optimistic this sizable proposal would break ground in a matter of months, lending a more residential feel to what’s now an underused industrial zone most recently used for car and truck storage.

Multifamily developers Vida Companies and Woodfield Development plan to build a village-like mix of commercial and residential structures on the 7-acre Oakland City site about a block west of the paved Westside Trail, adjacent to the historic (and also dormant) Murphy Crossing property.

Plans called for turning one standing building into commercial space, while building another from the ground up, for a total of 20,000 square feet. Vida officials told Urbanize Atlanta the goal was to provide 20 percent of the units as inclusionary housing, more than is required by the BeltLine Overlay District. Those housing options would be capped for renters earning 80 percent of the area’s median income, per plans submitted to the BeltLine Development Review Committee.

The property has been rezoned from a light industrial to multifamily residential district, allowing for high-density housing, per the BeltLine DRC. Plans also call for a BeltLine spur trail to run along the southern edge of the property.

A demolition permit for a one-story building on site was issued a year ago but has since expired, according to City of Atlanta Office of Buildings records.

No permitting or building paperwork for the address in question has been filed since.

Developers have previously said they hope to enter the project into the Georgia Brownfield Program, which helps fund cleanup of contaminated sites with federal grants. An initial analysis “flagged recognized environmental conditions on the property from historical uses,” per earlier filings.

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