Atlanta homebuilder aims to ‘pioneer’ development push into Bankhead

An Atlanta-based builder with a portfolio of some 1,400 homes is setting sights on Bankhead’s Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, where almost no major investment has occurred in recent decades.

Brock Built Homes, builders of planned communities from Woodstock to East Atlanta, sees potential (and lower land costs) in the corridor due west of Georgia Tech.

The Saporta Report delves this week into the prospects of—and logic behind—a planned townhome community with 400 feet of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway (formerly Bankhead Highway) frontage called The Finley.

Though it’s within sight of Midtown’s spires, the thoroughfare in question is defined by parking lots, shuttered buildings, and an auto salvage business. But it’s probably no coincidence the site is around the corner, via Marietta Boulevard, from the under-construction Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry.

The Maddox Park green space and MARTA’s Bankhead Station are just down the street, too.

Company founder and President Steve Brock told the website his intent with the townhome venture is “to be the leading indicator, the pioneer in the area.”

Not far way, Brock Built in recent decades has transformed industrial tracts south of Buckhead into hundreds of housing units, altering the feel of the area in significant ways.

For a preview of what’s to come in Bankhead, look no further than a rising Brock Built community called Westside Station, the developer says.

Photos: Brock Built

The Westside Station community on Marietta Road aims to reflect the area’s rail and heavy industrial past (and present), with architectural styles that include old mill, contemporary, and urban industrial. Prices start in the mid-$400,000s.

The Finley’s unspecified price points are expected to be cheaper, as land costs are significantly lower.

But Brock Built’s plans aren’t the first big ideas in the general vicinity to move forward in recent months.

Former Atlanta Braves first baseman Mark Teixeira, a budding real estate developer, unveiled early plans in September for what could be a sizable mixed-use piece along Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, near the Bankhead MARTA hub.

As that 25-acre site evolves, Teixeira said at the time, density and affordable housing will be paramount.

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Meanwhile, after years of planning, construction launched in August on the nearby Proctor Creek Greenway, which will eventually stretch northwest from Maddox Park to the Chattahoochee River.

• Atlanta’s Westside: Townhome project first to bring hope to blighted U.S. 78 corridor [Saporta Report]