Site activity at one of the most closely watched canker sores of vacant land in Atlanta sent the tip-line into a tizzy last week. 

For the better part of a decade, the cleared acreage at 98 14th Street has been pitched as the stage for a titanic, high-rise development that changed shape enough times to make Tyler Perry seem like a static character. According to developers—the last time they were speaking to Atlanta media—No2 Opus Place was scheduled to top out with 53 stories of glass-encased, luxurious condos last month.

But alas, the tower never began construction. And there’s no indication that recent work, or testing, at the site is the harbinger of No2 Opus-y things to come.

Soil testing at the No2 Opus Place site spotted in February. Submitted/Jacob Terry @jerkob

After buying the site eight years ago, New York-based developer Olympia Heights Management switched the proposal from three towers, to a single residential-hotel structure standing 730 feet, and finally to the scaled-back condos that still would have marked Atlanta tallest residential building. A ceremonial “groundbreaking” for the project was held just before Christmas in 2017, followed by years of empty promises and blown construction timelines.

OHM couldn’t be reached for this story; a phone number listed for the Brooklyn-based company has been disconnected. Our last viable contact for the No2 Opus Place project is unfortunately deceased, according to her automated email reply.

An early rendering shows No2 Opus Place when it was designed to be taller—a 730-foot glass statement piece to rival the condo towers of Manhattan and Tokyo. Plans were later scaled back. Perkins+Will/No2 Opus Place

Midtown Alliance officials had heard of nothing to indicate the project has a heartbeat—or what recent site activity might pertain to. The last permit issued at No2 Opus Place’s property dates back to January 2020, as one official noted.  

The No2 Opus Place website has been dismantled. Individual condo listings have long vanished from the market without notching any closings.

Price points bounced around over the years, but at last check, the building’s 182 condos were expected to start in the $600,000s. Mammoth penthouses that attracted headlines as the most luxurious, priciest condos proposed in Atlanta history dangled $12-million price tags at one point.

The project's main pool would have dwarfed those at other new Midtown buildings. ArX Solutions/No2 Opus Place

The building’s bonkers amenities called for two pools, an IMAX screening room, a 40th-floor golf simulator, and an onsite “Lifestyle Curator” to advise residents on how to live their best Atlanta lives. Those aspects helped attract dozens of pre-construction buyers who'd inked contacts, project leaders said in 2018.

OHM bought the four-acre 14th Street property for an even $22 million in 2014—the last transaction on file with the City of Atlanta. As of last year, OHM was still attempting to sell off a little more than half of that land to other developers; Cushman & Wakefield’s website no longer lists the parcels for sale.

Despite Midtown’s frenetic pace of development, buzz over No2 Opus Place has all but died in recent years. The project did attract headlines in March, when Bisnow Atlanta reported that architecture firm Perkins + Will was suing OHM for allegedly unpaid work invoices totaling about $800,000.

An opulent, $3-million sales center for No2 Opus Place materialized onsite but little else ever did. Which means the project's tallest component to be realized was the full-scale model in that sales center—a luxurious mock condo with 10-foot ceilings.

Following dynamiting to remove granite, this site work in June 2019 had Atlanta development wonks feeling giddy. The project’s expensive sales center, since closed, is pictured just beyond the hole. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

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