Atlanta Music Project revamping former grocery for HQ near MARTA, Beltline

Another Atlanta youth arts group is moving forward with a fresh headquarters within a short walk of MARTA transit, as its leaders proudly note.

The Atlanta Music Project, which currently serves 350 students through eight programs, has inked a 12-year lease on a former grocery store property in Capitol View that’s planned to act as the organization’s first headquarters.

Called the AMP Center for Performance and Education, the building is undergoing renovations within walking distance of the Oakland City MARTA Station and the Atlanta Beltline’s Westside Trail, southwest of downtown, officials said this week.

Expect a 150-seat performance hall, 10 sound-isolated rehearsal spaces, and offices.

Atlanta Music Project

The full buildout is tentatively scheduled to finish this summer, pending the results of a campaign called The Next Movement, which has ambitions to “transform music education in Atlanta.”

AMP leaders said this week that 80 percent of their $2.9-million goal has been reached. The Chick-fil-A Foundation and Chestnut Family Foundation were credited as lead donors.

Founded in 2010, AMP strives to provide free music education and instruments for underserved youth in their neighborhoods.

Atlanta Music Project

Elsewhere intown, Moving in the Spirit, an Atlanta-based creative youth development program, is under construction on a performing arts center designed by Perkins+Will in the shadow of Edgewood/Candler Park MARTA Station.

Construction of the Edgewood facility, called “A Space to Soar,” launched in October.

Funded by an $8.4 million capital campaign, the center will include performance spaces, classrooms, lecture halls, and meeting rooms. And it’ll more than triple the size of Moving in the Spirit’s 7,000-square-foot current space in Old Fourth Ward, officials have said.

Stephen Trimble/Perkins+Will