Neighbors in communities west of Midtown have shared concerns that a planned data center could be the wrong fit for a vibrant, growing area recently connected to the Atlanta Beltline. 

According to Atlanta Department of City Planning records, plans were approved in November to convert a warehouse more than a half-century old into a data center at 1611 Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard, across the street from Topgolf Atlanta in Blandtown. 

The rest of the roughly 17-acre site, long owned by New York City-based developer Youngwoo & Associates, would be used for an accessory substation and other uses not related to the data center, per the filings. 

Rough extent of the 17-acre property and proximity of the former warehouse/retail hub and proposed data center to Topgolf Atlanta Midtown. Google Maps/UA

The application was filed in 2024—just before the Atlanta City Council banned construction of new data centers within the Beltline Overlay District, or roughly within half a mile of the 22-mile trail loop, and near MARTA stations. 

Youngwoo’s plans were filed hours before the legislative ban on data centers took hold in August that year, calling for a roughly 400,000-square-foot data center within a mixed-use development at that time. 

According to city planning records, the plans were approved with conditions late last year, essentially grandfathering in the data center propoal, though the Beltline Design Review Committee has voted to not support the use. 

A section of the Beltline’s Northwest Trail opened about a block south of the proposed data center property last fall. 

Overview of the 17-acre 1611 Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard site, per marketing materials from two years ago. Image by Avison Young/2024

Past tenants at the empty warehouse property have included Horizon Home, furniture and rug outlets, and other businesses. Buildings that house Scope Fine Art, Deljou Art Group, and the former home of Steady Hand brewery are not within the scope of the 1611 Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard property, per county records. 

Young Woo, the New York company’s founder, has owned the property in question since the mid-1990s and floated plans in 2019 for a mixed-use overhaul with retail, restaurant, and loft office space that never took off. 

The developer's website refers to the property as Radio 1611 and shows a variety of design concepts on concrete pillars like stilts. 

Specifics of Youngwoo & Associates’ current plans for the property, or a timeline for its redevelopment, are unclear. Inquiries to the company this week were not returned. City of Atlanta officials also did not return requests for more information about the potential data center. 

Avison Young in 2024 listed the property for sale, specifying that current zoning allows for 1.5 million square feet of high-density development around the data center. 

Shortly after filing his data center application in 2024, Young Woo told Bisnow Atlanta, “Data center is the right use, in my opinion … We tried to build so many times, and for one thing or another, we couldn’t build [there],” he said, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and spiking interest rates as two examples.  

Broader Blandtown context near the Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard site in question. Google Maps/UA

Including a variety of uses beyond the data center, should it move forward, won’t be a matter of choice for whoever develops it. 

Elizabeth Hollister, Upper Westside Improvement District executive director, said the Upper Westside Overlay requires that the floor area for data centers can constitute only 50 percent of a project’s total footprint. 

“So they would need to develop other uses concurrently,” Hollister wrote via email to Urbanize Atlanta. “So far we have not seen [a Special Administrative Permit application] for other uses.

“With an approved SAP,” Hollister continued, “they are entitled to file for a building permit for the data center, but the space could not be occupied until the other uses also have a valid occupancy permit.”

Meanwhile, just south of the data center proposal, a mixed-use expansion is in the works for the Lumberyards Office Lofts district that would create a front door to the Beltline’s Northwest Trail. Developers Robles Partners and Crescent Communities recently told Urbanize the goal is to break ground there in the second quarter of 2027. 

Elsewhere, immediately east of the proposed data center, Atlanta-based companies Columbia Ventures and Radco filed plans last year for a project called Huber West Midtown that could see more than 800 new residences take shape. 

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