Memorial Drive’s breakneck building spree is continuing across nearly a full block within steps of the Atlanta BeltLine’s most patronized trail.
For its first intown project, Toro Development Company has begun preliminary site work and demolition at the Reynoldstown property where Reid’s Body Shop, a cherished local business, operated for some 68 years before bowing to development dollars last year.
Replacing the auto business and salvage yard will be an apartment venture now called “The Reid Flats” —instead of simply “The Reid”—in homage to the property’s longtime owner, Toro Development officials tell Urbanize Atlanta.
Developers expect razed buildings on site to be cleared away within the next few days. Vertical construction on The Reid Flats is now scheduled to begin May 1, with the first of 186 units delivering in summer 2025, officials said this week.
The corner building housing popular diner Home Grown, shown at right, wasn't impacted by demolition. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
Reid’s was one of Memorial Drive’s last big landowner holdouts near the Eastside Trail. The family business had operated at 952 Memorial Drive since the 1950s, and in a statement when its closure became news last summer, owner Robert Reid said the family was “excited to see this become a great new place for people to live.”
The Reids had other reasons to be excited. Property records, now public, indicate the 1.64-acre parcel fetched $6.8 million in July.
The first conceptual look at plans for The Reid Flats along Memorial Drive. Toro Development Company; designs, Dynamik Design
The apartments will rise on a sloped site next to popular diner Home Grown at the corner of Memorial Drive and Holtzclaw Street, just north of the Madison Yards mixed-use complex. No new retail is planned. Instead, TDC officials have said, ground-floor units will be “designed to engage the street-level and support pedestrian activity.”
The apartment mix calls for a range of studios up to two-bedroom units, with a pool on the roof. Fifteen percent of the rentals will be reserved as affordable housing—as required by the BeltLine’s inclusionary zoning ordinance—at 80 percent of the area’s median income.
TDC officials have said they plan to incorporate memorabilia from the shop “as an important part of the project’s design.”
Late this week, demolition crews took down former Reid's Body Shop structures at the 952 Memorial Drive site. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
Headed by Mark Toro, a former North American Properties executive, The Reid Flats will mark the developer's fourth multifamily project along the Eastside Trail corridor. Others include Edge OTB, Anthem on Ashley, and Camden Fourth Ward (formerly BOHO4W).
The Reid Flats are TDC’s first new multifamily development to break ground. Meanwhile, the company’s much larger mixed-use venture announced last year in suburban Johns Creek—the 43-acre Medley project—continues to move forward.
...
Follow us on social media:
• Reynoldstown news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)
