Fresh renderings: Toned-down version of multi-tower Midtown Union moves forward

Another sign that the block-altering Midtown Union project is moving forward at a prominent intown corner has emerged from a Midtown Development Review Committee meeting.

During Tuesday night’s assembly, Midtown leaders elected to green-light revised plans for the multi-tower project, which could ultimately include some 1.3 million square feet of residences, retail, hotel rooms, and office space.

How developer Granite Properties is imagining the 3.8-acre site at the corner of 17th and Spring streets, however, has changed drastically since initial renderings were released last year.

It appears as though the developer has traded the beefier vision for something more buttoned-up.

Heavily geometric sides of the development’s two prominent office towers are gone in new renderings, exchanged for sleeker and more segmented—and still very glassy—buildings, one of which juts skyward on one side.

Granite Properties, via Midtown Alliance

Cooper Carry, via JLL

Cooper Carry, via Midtown Alliance

“After working with committee members to resolve several outstanding issues, such as parking deck screening, public art, and street level facade enhancements, the DRC recommended conditional support for the project,” reads a Midtown Alliance blog post.

Street Lights Residential was recently tapped to handle the apartment facet of the development. The hotel flag has yet to be announced.

Investment management company Invesco is slated to claim about half of the 600,000 square feet of office space, which is expected to bring 500 new jobs for the area.

The first phase of Midtown Union, which was approved last year, calls for a 250-key hotel, 350 residences, 100,000 square feet of retail space, and roughly 1,800 parking spots.

The development is expected to start opening in 2022.

In other Midtown DRC news, developers Toll Brothers and Brock Hudgins have partnered for a new residential proposal that would claim a 1.35-acre site at 250 14th Street.

The project could produce a 17-story tower with 175 luxury apartments, “while maintaining two existing apartment buildings with 20 units at the property’s rear,” according to Midtown Alliance.

The site includes cleared land where the Dowling condos had been proposed.

Midtown Alliance spokesperson Brian Carr tells Curbed Atlanta the condo project has officially been nixed, and Toll Brothers now controls that site and two others adjacent to it.

Toll Brothers and Brock Hudgins, via Midtown Alliance

The project’s design “aims to bridge the distinct elements found in contemporary buildings within the Midtown commercial core and more traditional aspects of low-scale residential buildings near Piedmont Park,” the DRC report reads.

The committee was largely supportive of designs, but members suggested tweaks to better enhance the ground-level pedestrian experience.