As with MARTA’s Edgewood-Candler Park station before it, former parking lots and underused land continue to spring to life as housing around a transit hub where Decatur meets Avondale Estates. 

An official ribbon-cutting is scheduled Thursday for the latest Transit Oriented Development to deliver within a quick walk of MARTA’s Avondale transit hub, The Link at Columbia Senior Residences in Decatur. 

The five-story, 80-unit building, considered the second phase of the Decatur East development, continues the push across Atlanta and inner suburbs to create TOD housing nodes next to MARTA transit stations. 

The Link project is a partnership between Columbia Residential and Decatur Housing Authority and is situated on the eastern fringes of Decatur, along MARTA’s Blue Line. It broke ground in January 2024. 

The project is reserved for renters age 62 and older earning at most 50 or 60 percent of the Area Median Income. (Ten units are being reserved as market-rate housing.) Apartments have one or two bedrooms, and building amenities include a fitness center, outdoor courtyard, community room, and business center. 

Facades at The Link at Columbia Senior Residences in Decatur. Columbia Residential

The Link lobby at 515 E. Freeman St. Columbia Residential

Additional perks cited by developers include pedestrian access to the MARTA station (less than ¼ mile) and quick connections to both the East Decatur Greenway and Stone Mountain Trail. 

The project, which received Low Income Housing Tax Credits, was financially supported by the City of Decatur, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Decatur Housing, and DeKalb County.

MARTA sold the two parcels totaling 1.45 acres next to the rail station to Columbia Residential five years ago, citing the firm’s track record of delivering affordable senior units.

Next door, 92 units of similar housing were opened in the project’s initial phase in 2018, alongside hundreds of other apartments. The senior housing portion of that project remains fully occupied, Columbia Residential reps relayed this week. 

The second phase of senior housing is considered one of the two final pieces of the southside master TOD plan outlined by MARTA, the City of Decatur, Columbia Ventures, and developers Cortland. 

The scope of MARTA's TOD development to date and how it connects to Avondale station. Decatur East Phase II is at top, shown prior to construction. Google Maps

Columbia Residential

Similar mixed-income developments that have opened near stations in recent years—specifically Marchon at King Memorial station and the Quill complex in Edgewood—quickly reached leasing stabilization within six to 12 months, MARTA officials have said.   

Columbia Ventures reported in 2024 that Quill’s lease-up was the fastest the company has experienced, with 40 units being rented per month over a peak leasing period of three months, suggesting that transit-connectedness and living options below market rate is a potent combination.

Hundreds of new housing units have joined MARTA’s phase-one Cortland Decatur East in the corridor over the past several years, in both Decatur and Avondale Estates.

The trend is also continuing just west of the MARTA station today, where a 370-unit project called Halo East Decatur continues to sign retail tenants and is scheduled to deliver its first apartments in April. 

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