Four and ½ years after initial marketing efforts launched for a rare, for-sale condo complex on one of Atlanta’s most well-known commercial corridors, the end of construction is in sight—it just won’t come as soon as previously predicted.

The Leon on Ponce condo project has completed vertical construction in the 500 block of Ponce de Leon Avenue in Old Fourth Ward, with five stories of living levels including rooftop spaces now stacked atop a parking podium.

The Leon’s development team said a year ago the building was on pace to deliver in the fourth quarter of 2023, following delays caused by construction material sourcing. Prices at the time were expected to range from the high-$300,000s to the $600,000s—similar to original price points floated in 2019.

Pauline Miller, managing director for new development with Compass, tells Urbanize Atlanta the project is now scheduled to deliver next spring. The official sales push has yet to launch, and no updated info on pricing was available.

Construction progress this week at the topped-out The Leon condos in the 500 block of Ponce de Leon Avenue. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

The Leon’s website says the unit count is 74, with the location being “your elite opportunity to experience the electrifying pulse of urban convenience, community, and culinary flare your way, each and every day.”

The Leon was first marketed in May 2019 as the replacement for a cleared site that had served as surface parking. The .9-acre property sits between Mister Carwash and a new boutique hotel, less than a block west of Ponce City Market.

Atlanta-based Urban Eco Group is leading the development, with designs by another local company, Place Maker Design. The architecture firm’s previous work includes designs at The Beacon in Grant Park, Alpharetta City Center, and Atlantic Station’s Atlantic Stacks condos.

Condos will range from one-bedrooms with 610 square feet up to two-bedroom options with 1,100 square feet.

Prior to The Leon breaking ground, a “Coming Soon” sign for the project stood at the property for more than two years.

The Leon on Ponce's site, at right, as surface parking in October 2019. Google Maps

Ponce frontages as seen during sunrise this week. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

With the exception of a few shipping containers, the site’s last occupant was the controversial Phoenix bar, which the city shut down in 2005. An LLC called 567 Ponce de Leon Partners PL1 scooped up the property in April 2019 for $2.14 million, property records show.

The Leon joins thousands of apartments developed in the area over the past decade but only a handful of condo offerings. Those include Capital City Real Estate’s 29-unit Flats at the Indie condo project (formerly priced from the mid-$300,000s, but now sold out). The same developer is selling a BeltLine-fronting condo venture a few blocks from The Leon called The Roycraft, with remaining units priced from the low $300,000s in Virginia-Highland right now.

Looking west at the condo project today, over Mister Carwash. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

A rendering illustrating the project's vehicle entry point and balconies over Ponce de Leon Avenue—and proximity to Ponce City Market. Urban Eco Group/Compass; designs, Place Maker Design

Beyond The Leon condos, investment has poured into this formerly scruffy section of Ponce in recent years, most notably with Ponce City Market’s topped-out, two-building, phase-two growth spurt at the corner of Glen Iris Drive.

Elsewhere, on the property immediately west of the condos, the 111-room Wylie Hotel opened in 2021, reviving a landmark building from the 1920s. And less than two blocks away, on the same side of Ponce, Chick-fil-A bulldozed a gas station and opened a brick-clad, drive-thru restaurant this year at the corner of Boulevard.  

In the gallery above, find more context and a closer look at where The Leon literally stands right now.

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