As documented in recent months, the BeltLine’s Southside Trail corridor has more large-scale developments happening alongside it than Mayor Andre Dickens has speaking engagements and ribbon-cuttings on his calendar. Which is to say, a boatload.

At the risk of sounding confusing, the northernmost of those Southside Trail projects—the one closest to the popular Eastside Trail, to put it another way—has begun to take shape in a way that illustrates how it will interact with long-awaited BeltLine pieces expected to finally begin construction this year.  

Atlanta-based Avila Development broke ground in May last year at a formerly industrial Grant Park site where a multifamily redo had been in the works for the better part of a decade.

Prior to construction, the site in relation to the Southside Trail, Ormewood Park to the east, and Maynard Jackson High School to the north. Google Maps

The Argos Apartments, as the project's called, will consist of 194 rentals between an extension of Killian Street and Berne Street, where the latter bridges over the BeltLine’s Southside Trail corridor. It will have no shortage of BeltLine frontage, but unlike Middle Street Partners’ ongoing, trail-fronting project in the same neighborhood, it won’t include any retail space.  

The Brock Hudgins Architects-designed Argos building will stand five stories, wrapping a precast concrete parking structure. Avila officials told Urbanize Atlanta last year the project is expected to fully deliver in July 2023.

Framing underway at The Argos Apartments, as seen in June from the Berne Street bridge over the Southside Trail. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

The company’s recent intown developments include nearby 915 Glenwood, located just north along the Southside Trail corridor, and The Kirkwood, a 232-unit apartment build adjacent to that neighborhood’s commercial village.

Several properties assembled for the Grant Park site had been the source of discussions between neighborhood groups and development teams—and the subject of Grant Park Neighborhood Association votes—dating back to early 2016. Lafarge Building Materials, the previous owner, sold the properties for $4.5 million in 2016, according to city records.

How the apartments will meet existing bike lanes on Berne Street. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

Avila’s investment continues a flurry of multifamily and mixed-use development along the Southside Trail, which landed another $5 million from federal coffers in April to help fund construction.

Grant Park's Southside Trail section between Boulevard and Glenwood Avenue— Segments 4 and 5—has moved into the shovel-ready phase, meaning that all utility relocation work, real estate transactions, and permitting is completed, according to the BeltLine. Bids for construction can’t go out until brownfield remediation and work to relocate fiber in the area is complete.

The community's planned BeltLine facade. Avila Development, via City of Atlanta Planning Department; designs, Brock Hudgins Architects

The fiber relocation is expected to finish in August, and at last check, BeltLine officials were optimistic the Southside Trail will break ground this year and open between Glenwood Park and Boulevard sometime in the middle of 2023. 

That work will include replacement of the (sorely missing) United Avenue bridge. 

• Grant Park news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)