The growing roster of Midtown’s potentially skyline-altering towers is coming more sharply into focus.
As Atlanta’s seemingly indefatigable development cycle roars on, the crop of more than 40 projects in the 1.2-square-mile slice that is the Midtown Improvement District is adding sky-scraping, exclamation-point proposals that appear to have real momentum.
According to renderings put out by the Midtown Alliance, a high-rise project on a long-underused site across the Connector from Atlantic Station could be among the most visually interesting of them all.
Developer JLL is calling the proposal—merely the first piece of what could be a massive, 8-acre build—Midtown Union.
It would consume about 4 acres at 17th and Spring streets with glassy, sibling towers that Midtown Development Review Committee officials described as “bold” during a recent meeting, noting the project’s potential for “significant impact ... on the character of the district around the Woodruff Arts Center.”
At the meeting, JLL was making a follow-up presentation, outlining project specifics: expect a 255-key hotel, 354 “residential units,” and about 100,000 square feet of retail to include a grocery and food hall. But the majority of space (more than 600,000 square feet) would be devoted to office use, per Midtown Alliance.
When news broke earlier this year, developers said the project would rise on the site of the eight-story Arthritis Foundation building and existing parking lots, incorporating a pedestrian promenade that would stretch from Spring to West Peachtree streets. Expect almost 1,800 parking spaces.
The Midtown DRC, while generally supportive of the project, has questioned the design team from Atlanta firm Cooper Carry about the project’s street interaction. The team conceded in April that specifics about the retail and parking-deck facades are still being refined as tenants are identified, and the committee withheld full support until that’s all worked out, per Midtown Alliance.
Also at the meeting, Selig Enterprises debuted its vision for the latest component of the 12th & Midtown project—a sleek, block-swallowing Peachtree Street tower between 12th and 13th streets.
Per Selig reps, plans call for another large hotel (253 rooms of luxury), 56 condos, 6,000 square feet of street retail, and a nine-story office tower piece.
Uses change as the tower rises, and thus its components would be stepped back to allow for amenity space, per developers.
For this proposal, the DRC collectively had the following thoughts, per Midtown Alliance:
“Overall, the elegant design of the tower and refined street level façade on Peachtree delivers a sophisticated project with a unique sense of arrival.
However, the project has several challenges to overcome on the Juniper [Street] frontage related to vehicular access and active use. The committee requested additional work at each corner on Juniper to explore the opportunity for usable space that would both enhance the value of the project and maximize synergies with surrounding uses along this active corridor.”
For those keeping tabs at home, the JLL and Selig proposals join a growing list of statement sky-rises that could significantly alter Midtown’s skyline in coming years.
Most notably, those include the 53-story No2 Opus Place project (below), which is undergoing site work on 14th Street and promising to be Atlanta’s tallest residential tower.
Roni Avraham, Olympia Heights Management director of developments, recently told Curbed Atlanta he expects construction to move “full force” by September or early October with residents moving into No2 Opus Place within about two years. Condo prices now begin in the $600,000s.
Elsewhere in Midtown, Cousins Properties is angling to build a 500-foot office tower between 7th and 8th streets, where the Daiquiri Factory now stands, not far from the developer’s under-construction NCR headquarters.
And Selig is also under construction on a transformative, $400 million mixed-use complex on West Peachtree Street (below), which will flaunt a 180-room Marriot hotel, 73 condos, and more than 600,000 square feet of office space, per developers.
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