College Park’s 320-acre ‘Airport City’ could break ground this summer

The largest mixed-use development ever planned south of Interstate 20 in metro Atlanta could show signs of life as soon as this summer, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Dubbed “Airport City,” the 320-acre project aims to bring housing, retail, offices, and green space to an underutilized area near the world’s busiest passenger airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International.

The Aerotropolis Atlanta Alliance, a business group aiming to inject south ITP with attractions to draw crowds from all directions, is nearing an agreement with its first developer, the AJC reports.

Soon after that contract is inked, the College Park site should start evolving.

The Aerotropolis Atlanta Alliance—or AeroATL—was founded in 2015 as a means of sprucing up airport-adjacent areas, which have long hosted little more than warehouses, a smattering of restaurants, and hotels for airport travelers.

That year, business executives and College Park leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of the city’s first new apartment complex in more than three decades, The Pad on Harvard.

Now, College Park could be primed to witness growth like never before, with developments such as Temple Square townhouses—the first project within College Park’s newly approved transit-oriented development district—moving forward.

If the vision for the massive Airport City is eventually realized, the neighborhood could welcome unprecedented density that would impress most urbanists.

The development, which is anticipated to cost upwards of $500 million, was initially projected to deliver some 3.5 million square feet of new construction.

But in August, College Park leaders declared they were shooting for something in the neighborhood of 10 million square feet of development—think four Atlantic Stations.

Infusing that much activity into the area would spike construction costs, of course, and developments of that stature are rarely carried out completely in America, as experts have pointed out.

• “Airport City” development near Hartsfield-Jackson may start in summer [AJC]