On the heels of a boutique hotel signing, Central Perimeter’s next mixed-use destination has put enough pieces in place to lift off soon, its development team reports this week.

Buckhead-based RocaPoint Partners and New York developer Georgetown Company teamed to buy Dunwoody’s former Gold Kist headquarters in 2020, a 1970s complex bordering Interstate 285 the poultry company had vacated a decade ago.

Apart from being used as a film set in Clint Eastwood’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing movie Richard Jewell, the 13-acre site has seen little activity since 2011. City officials rejected a high-rise proposal for the property called Crown Towers several years ago.

The 13-acre property next to Interstate 285 today. RocaPoint Partners

RocaPoint and Georgetown officials haven’t committed to a groundbreaking timeline for what’s now called Campus 244, but they said this week the multiphase redevelopment is close to moving forward after inking a deal for a 145-key Element Hotel as part of phase one.

Eventually, Campus 244 is expected to span 1-million square feet adjacent to Dunwoody’s MARTA station, near Perimeter Mall, joining a Central Perimeter development boom that aspires to remake the edge city into a more walkable district.

A greenspace planned to connect with the Element Hotel lobby, depicted at right. Courtesy of RocaPoint Partners/Georgetown Company; designs, S9 Architecture

Alongside State Farm’s new three-tower regional headquarters, significant mixed-use projects underway in the area include GID Development Group’s $2-billion High Street and a hipper, more fashionable remake of Perimeter Place called Ashford Lane.

Along with the ground-up hotel, Campus 244’s initial phase calls for reimagining the Gold Kist offices into five stories of modernized, Class A office space with 15-foot ceilings and a timber overbuild, encompassing 400,000 square feet.

The S9 Architecture-designed building will offer large floorplates (90,000 square feet) and post-pandemic features such as touch-free elevators and restrooms, sophisticated HVAC systems, large patios, and operable windows, according to developers.

The new boutique hotel, part of Marriott Bonvoy’s portfolio, will feature a local chef-driven restaurant, lobby bar, and meeting areas that spill out onto a central Campus 244 greenspace, officials said. It’ll be owned and operated by Vision Hospitality Group, which runs nine other lodges in metro Atlanta, including the AC Hotel by Marriott Atlanta Perimeter recently opened nearby.

The 1970s complex being remade into the phase-one office component. Courtesy of RocaPoint Partners/Georgetown Company; designs, S9 Architecture

Once all phases are complete, Campus 244 will see 25,000 square feet of food and beverage operations—including names from another RocaPoint and Georgetown joint venture, Forsyth County’s $500-million Halcyon project, officials said.

Plans call for four or five restaurants to eventually surround the central park space.

Phil Mays, RocaPoint Partners principal, pointed to substantial investments in Central Perimeter from Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies across the Southeast as reasons why Campus 244 makes sense. An added bonus for companies, as developers note, is the property’s 1,000 feet of I-285 frontage, lending “unparalleled signage opportunities.”

“With all of the pre-development pieces now in place,” noted Georgetown managing principal Jonathan Schmerin, “we’re ready to forge ahead with the next phase in the redevelopment… and deliver a walkable, amenity-rich creative campus in Atlanta’s largest office submarket.”

• Images: State Farm's massive, MARTA-connected project is nearly finished (Urbanize Atlanta)