Self-storage project near Beltline rounds into shape—as ban takes hold

As the City of Atlanta’s temporary ban on new self-storage facilities officially takes hold, a new facility for storing people’s stuff is rounding into shape near a popular Atlanta Beltline section—next door to an existing self-storage complex.

Vertical and exterior construction has wrapped at a 1061 Memorial Drive project in Reynoldstown that will be Atlanta’s next location for national self-storage brand The Space Shop, according to new signage on site. It stands four blocks east of one of the Beltline’s most popular intown trails, in a part of town that’s grown increasingly walkable.  

The Atlanta City Council last week passed a 180-day moratorium on construction of new self-storage facilities in Atlanta. In a city where land and buildable sites are becoming increasingly scarce, critics argue that self-storage project sites would better serve communities as affordable housing, retail, or more active uses.

The Space Shop operates nearly 50 locations around metro Atlanta and Athens. At another intown location on 14th Street near Midtown, monthly storage prices start at $100 for a closet-size space spanning five by five feet. 

According to building permits, The Space Shop will include two components: a five-story self-storage facility totaling nearly 100,000 square feet; closer to Memorial Drive is a 13,300-square-foot spec office building standing two stories as a shell property, per city records.  

Immediately west of the site is the vacant, 1920s former Hubert Elementary School that defunct arts nonprofit WonderRoot once planned to renovate and occupy. On the flipside of the property is another self-storage complex operated by Public Storage. The site formerly housed a small brick church. 

Plans for the Reynoldstown property were much different a few years ago.  

Invest Atlanta’s Board of Directors in 2019 approved a $22-million lease-purchase bond to help get a multifamily development off the ground at the parcel in question. 

Plans at the time called for 176 co-living units, with 15 percent of them (or 27 apartments total) capped at rents for people earning 80 percent of the Area Median Income or less.  

The agreement marked the first time Invest Atlanta had supported the housing type, which encourages roommates to keep costs down.  

The self-storage facility will follow completion of a controversial project with similar uses in Virginia-Highland, at the doorstep of both the Eastside Trail and Piedmont Park. 

For better or worse, national studies in recent years have found metro Atlanta to be among the top places for construction of new self-storage space—including in distinctly “urban” locations.  

Find a closer look at the current Memorial Drive situation in the gallery above. 

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• Reynoldstown news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)