Latest affordable housing venture promises 177 units near Bellwood Quarry

For Atlantans seeking new or refurbished apartments with a side of multi-use path, the areas around the Beltline’s Westside Trail are shaping up to be more affordable than those wrapped around the pathway’s eastern leg.

In English Avenue, north of where the three-mile paved path currently ends, Brock Built Homes is planning 144 affordable units for its 17-acre mixed-use development, Echo Street Communities.

In Adair Park, $500,000 from Invest Atlanta’s Beltline Affordable Housing Trust Fund is being used to help develop a $15 million project by Woda Cooper Companies and Parallel Housing. Dubbed “Adair Court,” the under-construction, mixed-use community is expected to boast 77 affordable units—85 percent of the 91 total senior-living apartments.

Also in Adair Park, the 1940s-built Capitol View Apartments complex is primed for a major renovation that will turn its 120 one- and two-bedroom apartments into affordable living options.

And now, a stone’s throw from the Bellwood Quarry and its massive, under-construction park, the 70-acre Quarry Yards mixed-use project is continuing the trend with another 177 affordable units planned near a future Beltline segment.

City of Atlanta

Developed by a partnership between Urban Creek Partners and Prestwick Development, the residential piece is called Parkside, and it’s slated to break ground in the second quarter of 2019—part of Quarry Yards’s 27-acre, $400 million first phase.

About 15 percent of initial units will be available to local workforce earning 80 percent of the area median income, according to an Urban Creek press release.

But here’s the kicker: 85 percent of homes will target residents earning 50 percent to 60 percent AMI.

Sited at 1314 Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, Parkside would be planted a little more than a block west of the Bankhead MARTA station and the southernmost entrance to the new Proctor Creek Greenway.

Jonathan Phillips, Curbed Atlanta

Parkside is also expected to offer a community room with a warming kitchen, workout facilities, a business center with computers, and a laundry room.

And outside, look out for a gazebo and picnic area, community gardens, and a playground.

Kwanza Hall, Invest Atlanta’s managing director of development for the Proctor Creek watershed, said this development is helping set a standard for affordability on the Westside—which the Eastside Trail area probably could have benefited from years ago.

“Now is the time to carve out affordable housing options on the Westside,” he said, per the press release. “Parkside at Quarry Yards is timely and appropriate and will help to prime the pump with an affordable housing investment first—giving the market a chance to create a variety of price points to meet increasing demands.”

In addition to Parkside, the first phase of the Quarry Yards development is expected to bring 50,000 square feet of loft offices and 32,000 square feet of retail.