Former TV/film complex on Beltline asks: What should go here, Atlanta?

John Raulet bought an 11-acre former industrial complex in Chosewood Park on Atlanta’s southside in 2012. For the next 11 years, Mailing Avenue Stageworks was rented out by Georgia’s thriving TV and film industry for every single week (except two), with one production after the next rolling in. The gravy train, basically. 

That all came to a crashing halt when the Writers Guild of America strike took hold in May 2023. The Chosewood Park compound has been vacant ever since, as TV and film productions around Atlanta in need of large studio space have largely evaporated. 

Now Raulet, vice president at Raulet Property Partners, is contemplating the next chapter for a property that could have beachfront cachet—like so many older, intown Atlanta warehouse compounds before it, from the Lee + White district to Common Ground and beyond—with the Atlanta Beltline’s scheduled arrival next year.

Located at 1144 Mailing Ave., the Chosewood Park property is not yet for sale, but Raulet views it as a once-in-a-generation redevelopment opportunity, now surrounded by hundreds of new multifamily residences, for-sale townhomes, and what amounts to a rising, 1,000-home small town within the city. With the Beltline’s full Southside Trail aiming for completion before 2026 FIFA World Cup matches next June, and with the glitz of Y’allywood fading (at least for now), Raulet hopes to gather ideas from Atlantans as to what the strategically placed complex should become.

“The plan was to keep leasing to the film industry for another three to five years, and the film industry decided they didn’t want to do that,” Raulet told Urbanize Atlanta this week. “We want to sell at some point, but with interest rates and construction costs what they are, we haven’t actively put it on the market. Nobody’s looking to buy dirt.”

Raulet said he’s been approached by companies proposing a number of potential uses, including electric-car charging infrastructure and autonomous vehicle concepts (there’s a power substation located just to the north), loft offices, entertainment and live-event venues, and yes, pickleball. One unique selling point, he noted, is the property’s clear views of Atlanta’s skyline from the south. 

“We’ve got construction on the Beltline to bring the eastside and westside together, and the Eastside Trail gets so crowed, hopefully some of that mass starts coming down here,” he said. “Does everything need to be a five-story apartment complex? People are going to need somewhere to go down there. Not everything can be pickleball.”

The property today counts 140,000 square feet across three buildings: an 85,000-square-foot warehouse, a 53,000-square-foot ancillary facility, and a 7,000-square-foot support building. 

As a soundstage complex opened in time for Georgia’s TV/film ascension, Mailing Avenue Stageworks hosted productions of “MacGyver,” “Last Vegas,” “Insurgent,” “Allegiant,” and many others across 11 years, until the strike, shifting studio strategies, and foreign competition put a damper on things. But the film-production history means the property has attributes, according to Raulet, that could make it appealing for adaptive-reuses, including wide floorplans, high ceilings, and large-format utility infrastructure.

Find more 1144 Mailing Ave. context and imagery in the gallery, and a brief YouTube overview over here. 

And let’s ask ourselves: What should this big, Beltline-adjacent piece of southside Atlanta become? 

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