Just south of Atlanta’s largest greenspace, leaders of historic Westside neighborhood Grove Park have been cooking up plans for years to replace blighted, empty land with a village of new for-sale housing that, in theory, wouldn't break the bank. 

Those housing plans have taken a formal step forward this month, with an active intown planning and architecture firm now on board. But a key component is still missing: the right company to build it all. 

The land in question is owned by Grove Park Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 2017 with a goal of revitalizing the neighborhood. It totals just shy of 6 acres across three neighboring parcels, less than a mile south of Shirley Clarke Franklin Park, a few blocks from Donald Hollowell Parkway and Grove Park’s budding commercial district. 

Just north of the site, developer Columbia Residential worked with Grove Park Foundation to build the 110-unit affordable housing initiative Columbia Canopy at Grove Park four years ago. 

Grove Park Foundation has hired Kronberg Urbanists + Architects—an Atlanta-based firm known for creative infill projects and pocket neighborhoods across the city, often with an affordability component—to help bring the housing plans to fruition. 

Location of the roughly 6 acres in Grove Park in relation to Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway and, at top, Atlanta's largest greenspace. Google Maps

According to Eric Kronberg, the firm’s principal, the Grove Park acreage could see roughly 90 homes built, though plans are expected to evolve over time. Today the parcels—situated along Hasty Place, West Lake Avenue, North Avenue, and Elmwood Road—are home to a vacant house, an empty fourplex, and “kudzu and trees and a lot of abandoned tires and a creek,” per Kronberg. 

Grove Park Foundation was working to start the project with a developer, but when those plans fell apart, Kronberg’s firm was brought on to help see it through the development process. Tentative plans came before the Atlanta City Council Zoning Committee last week, seeking rezoning from a community business district designation to one that allows for affordable workforce single-family and multifamily housing. 

“Calling all amazing mixed-income housing developers,” Kronberg said. “Here’s an amazing opportunity.”

Tentative plans for the three neighboring parcels call for roughly 90 homes along Hasty Place, West Lake Avenue, North Avenue, and Elmwood Road. Kronberg Urbanists + Architects; City of Atlanta Office of Zoning and Development

Grove Park Foundation’s goal is that all units will be for-sale, to help increase homeownership in the community. Kronberg believes the best path forward is to build mostly “rowhouses”—an uncommon term in Atlanta that essentially refers to townhomes, but with surface parking instead of garages. Plans call for one-bedroom units starting around 640 square feet, and larger homes with two and three bedrooms. 

“The plan was proposed to have a handful of market-rate units that would be up to 2,400 square feet roughly, but those are really hard to make work, just financially,” said Kronberg. “So that would be tightened up in the final plan.”

The majority of Grove Park units would be priced for buyers earning roughly between 80 and 120 percent of the Area Median Income, meaning the smaller one-bedroom options would start around $250,000. It’s possible those prices could come down in some cases, if grant funds or other funding sources can be found, per Kronberg.

“I know [the foundation] would like to have some more affordable options than that,” he said. “But there’s the initial thoughts of affordability, and there’s the hard work of trying to make a development pencil.” 

The Grove Park acreage in question in relation to other Westside landmarks, plus Midtown and downtown. Google Maps

Beyond housing, some live-work space or “really, really light retail” could be possible in the southwest corner of the site, near the intersection of North and West Lake avenues, per Kronberg. The neighborhood has hoped to create a connective walking path along a stream that wends through the site, but the city’s stream buffer ordinance prohibiting new construction within 75 feet of waterways on both sides prevents that. 

Planners are requesting a “modest reduction” of the buffer to fit more housing in, according to Kronberg.      

Like other swaths of intown Atlanta prepped for building but lacking builders, the Grove Park site is undergoing preemptive steps to make it as attractive as possible, in blank-slate form. According to Kronberg, the project involves too many moving parts right now to say when it could possibly break ground. 

Kronberg Urbanists + Architects; City of Atlanta Office of Zoning and Development

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