Planning department relocating Atlanta City Studio to South Downtown’s Broad Street

The Atlanta City Studio, an office of the city’s planning department, has enjoyed its last days in Cascade Heights and is moving on to a new home.

After two years at the Southwest Atlanta location, the studio will plant roots in South Downtown, on art-adorned Broad Street.

The move will make the City of Atlanta the newest tenant in developer Newport's ongoing redevelopment of the area, which entails restoring eight blocks of aging neighborhood buildings.

“Being in the center of the city is the perfect place for the Studio’s next location,” said Planning Commissioner Tim Keane of the move to 99 Broad Street, according to a blog post by the planning department.

Since its inception in 2016 at Ponce City Market, the Atlanta City Studio has afforded residents the chance to swing by and weigh in on changes that could affect them and their communities.

Now, the planning department aims to expand its capabilities.

The Studio “will be progressing in the way it works—in how we pursue better design and in how we help residents shape the city,” Keane said in the post, later adding: “Now is a time the planning department, as a whole, needs to be more like our Studio.”

Since the studio moved to Cascade Heights in April 2017, its local projects have included the Cascade Storefront Redesign Program, Beecher Street design concept, Cascade Bus Canopy design and construction, “and, most recently, a design concept for the multi-generational housing near the Cascade Heights Commercial District,” per the post.

Elsewhere in the city, the studio has worked on Broad Street’s pedestrian-friendly revamp, the Westside Park project, and the planned Peachtree Street woonerf.

The Atlanta City Studio’s new address is part of a small stretch of Broad Street that used to be dotted with popular arts and music venues, such as Mammal Gallery.

Some of the galleries are still searching for new homes, although Mammal Gallery has found refuge at The Met, Adair Park’s massive adaptive-reuse site being made over by developer Carter.