Filings: Rare Buckhead condo tower heading toward construction

A rare stack of for-sale condominiums near Buckhead Village is preparing for pre-construction demolition work two years after the project was initially proposed, according to recent filings made with the City of Atlanta. 

Dezhu US, an active intown developer based in Norcross, plans to build a 17-story condo building with relatively large units at 119 Pharr Road. 

The project would replace a two-story rental community called Pharr Manor Apartments, tucked about a block and ½ west of Restoration Hardware Atlanta. Paperwork filed earlier this year with Buckhead’s SPI-9 Development Review Committee indicates the condo building will be called Veridian Buckhead.

The development team appears ready to start moving forward with demotion on site. 

As of this week, Atlanta’s Department of City Planning has completed all site reviews and is ready to issue demolition permits Dezhu US had requested last month, according to online filings. 

Separate filings made by the development team have earned the city’s permission to install a sewer plug on site, a necessary initial step to prevent flow into work areas. 

Dezhu US has not responded to inquiries for a construction update this week. An official with Atlanta-based Goode Van Slyke Architecture firm, the project’s lead designers, said he’s not authorized to provide updates. 

Dezhu US initially filed paperwork in March 2023 for land disturbance permits to move forward with the condo project, but little has changed on site since. The luxury project would include 61 condos and eight townhouse units; it’s expected to cost $100 million and span 155,000 square feet overall, according to those documents.

Veridian condos would range from 1,900-square-foot, two-bedroom units to sprawling three-bedroom options with 3,030 square feet and “a design that captures a level of luxury living unsurpassed in the area,” per a Goode Van Slyke project description. 

The building’s parking garage would be topped with an amenity level featuring a pool, spa, dog park, and yoga studio. Other amenities would check most of today’s new multifamily prerequisites for onsite pampering: fitness center, a demo kitchen, lounge, coworking space, and dog spa.

The development team is also planning to convert a small vacant building at 30 Pharr Road—most recently home to Four Fat Cows ice cream shop and bakery—into a sales center for the condo project.  

That 2,750-square-foot building would be fronted by an artificial green wall and porch, with five parking spaces in front, plus a display kitchen and bathroom inside, according to planing documents. It stands less than a block from the proposed condo site on Pharr Road. 

The Veridian project would mark Buckhead Village’s largest condo venture since The Charles Buckhead, an 18-story modern-style building with 57 units.

The Pharr Road project’s height would make it an anomaly in the immediate area but not for the blocks east of Peachtree Road overall, where the St. Regis Atlanta and One Buckhead Plaza have stood nearby for years.

A larger apartment building was proposed in 2022 for a site roughly one block closer to Peachtree. But that 20-story building—pitched for a property directly behind Restoration Hardware, where a two-story parking deck stands now—has yet to move forward. 

Elsewhere in Atlanta, Dezhu has built the six-story J5 Midtown condos, the Reverb by Hard Rock hotel and neighboring apartments in Castleberry Hill, and most recently the 555 Boulevard project in Old Fourth Ward. 

According to ApartmentFinder, the existing 47 low-rise apartments on the Veridian site were built in 1975. Demolition permit paperwork filed by developers indicates 10 apartment buildings total would be razed to make way for the condos. 

Find more context and imagery, including for the proposed Pharr Road sales center, in the gallery above. 

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