Transit-friendly College Park townhomes from low $300Ks are moving forward

A townhome project angling to maximize non-vehicle mobility and help stimulate the revitalization of Historic Downtown College Park is all systems go.

Developers behind Temple Square townhomes—the first project to move forward in College Park’s recently approved transit-oriented development district—have secured a $3.1 million loan from Atlantic Capital Bank that green-lights construction, officials announced this week.

Positioned 100 yards north of the College Park MARTA Station, the project will break ground in December with completion expected in the third or fourth quarter of 2019, a rep tells Curbed Atlanta.

Forecasted to cost $4.8 million overall, Temple Square will deliver 17 homes ranging from 1,850 to 2,500 square feet. All units will be priced from the low to high $300,000s.

Developers point to the attractiveness of nearby Woodward Academy and 63,000 jobs at Atlanta’s airport, plus nearby corporate headquarters for Delta Air Lines, Porsche North America, and Chick-fil-A as evidence of built-in market demand.

Temple Square is proposed by Rod Mullice and Jerome Russell, the development team behind College Park’s ThePad on Harvard, which debuted down the street in 2016 as the city’s first new apartments since 1969. The earlier project is 96 percent leased.

As for College Park’s new TOD zone, the overarching goal is to leverage transit access like developments at Lindbergh, Edgewood/Candler Park, Avondale, and other MARTA hubs.

It consists of land in a 200-acre radius around the city’s MARTA station and historic core, and proponents have said it’s the first TOD area of its kind on Atlanta’s southside.

The initiative is designed to attract as many as 6,000 new residents to the city, should the area in question be fully built out.

Image courtesy of City of College Park

The TOD’s ordinance approved in recent weeks aims to steer retail, residential, and all other development toward being “vertically integrated in order to lessen automobile dependency, foster a sense of community, and to maximize the use of available land,” city documents have stated.

The proposed new rules detail very specific requirements on such aspects as height of buildings, lot sizes, building materials, facade designs, landscaping, parking, and lighting.

Regarding other modes of transportation, for instance, it also requires that parking for bicycles must be as convenient as that designated for cars. Prohibited business types in the TOD would include pawn shops, tattoo parlors, adult entertainment, check-cashing services, vehicle sales, and others.