1940s Edgewood Avenue building on streetcar line seeks new lease on life

A highly visible office building on Sweet Auburn’s Edgewood Avenue is aiming for a new lease on life, so to speak, that could alter its function on a swiftly changing side of town.

What exactly could become of the 9,200-square-foot structure—occupying a corner on the popular bar and restaurant strip and topped with green infrastructure—is up in the air.

Local architecture firm Epsten Group has for years inhabited the 1946 building, but the company is relocating to an office tower on Marietta Street in May.

The Edgewood Avenue building is now being marketed for lease as office space, which is what the current floorplan best accommodates, but the zoning means it could be much more.

Being part of a commercial service district, 399 Edgewood has the potential to become a restaurant, nightclub, bowling alley, beauty salon, bank, or residences, among plenty of other options, according to marketers.

It’s being offered for the first time since Epsten extensively renovated the building, according to Jeff Pollock, owner and managing principal at Pollock Commercial, which is marketing the building.

Whatever takes the firm’s place would be located across the street from an Exxon gas station, roughly catty-corner from the Georgia Beer Garden, and about a block away from Noni’s Italian restaurant, Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium, and other local attractions.

The building fronts the Atlanta Streetcar’s eastbound line on Edgewood, just before it turns north on Jackson Street. It’s about a half-mile west of the Beltline’s Eastside Trail.

Pollock is looking for a single tenant to lease the space, and the firm is asking for $24.50 per square foot per year, according to the property’s LoopNet profile.