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A drone’s image of the Atlanta skyline set against a clear blue backdrop of the sky.
The formerly industrial West Midtown area around Marietta Street and Howell Mill Road has drastically changed in recent years.

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UPDATED: A clear winter’s day, a drone, and 14 fresh glimpses of Atlanta’s changing skyline

Some bird’s-eye-view context from around downtown and corridors morphing into development hot zones

By Josh Green Updated
Photography by Jonathan Phillips, Curbed Atlanta
21 comments / new

The smirk of urban Atlanta spanning from the Howell Mill Road area to Reynoldstown’s Memorial Drive has witnessed billions of dollars in private (and public) investment materialize since the Great Recession, with potentially many billions more in development to come.

That’s the focus of today’s photo essay, which aims to capitalize on the gloriously (occasionally) clear skies of this Southern winter and lend some bird’s-eye context for the downtown area. It follows another sky-high Visual Journeys installment in the summer of 2018, amidst the city’s sultry haze.

Stay tuned for other drone explorations of Atlanta’s changing cityscape in coming weeks, as time and weather allows.

A drone’s image of the Atlanta skyline set against a clear blue backdrop of the sky.
Downtown views from eastern Midtown show hotel construction along Peachtree Street and the size of Emory Proton Therapy Center’s footprint.
A drone’s image of the Atlanta skyline set against a clear blue backdrop of the sky.
The scope of the idle, former Atlanta Civic Center site today.
A drone’s image of the Atlanta skyline set against a clear blue backdrop of the sky.
A bird’s-eye-view of what’s essentially becoming an eastside Main Street where Memorial Drive meets the Beltline’s Eastside Trail, with downtown in the distance. The Madison Yards project is at bottom left.
A drone’s image of the Atlanta skyline set against a clear blue backdrop of the sky.
A fresh vantage on downtown landmarks that have stood for decades, soon to be joined by Ascent Peachtree, a $125 million apartment tower being built atop a parking garage at left.
A photo of a large Atlanta highway with a gold dome capitol building in the distance.
Another constant, the Gold Dome, with remarkably light Connector traffic in the foreground.
A skyline view over downtown Atlanta with a city and blue skies beyond.
The concentration of surface parking lots in downtown’s southern reaches is apparent here, with the Gulch at left. At bottom left are the landmark Norfolk Southern Buildings, where an adaptive-reuse transformation into offices and retail continues.
A drone photo of downtown Atlanta, with a black building at left.
Panning out on the junction of downtown and Midtown, where low-rise housing meets high-rises.
A drone’s view of the Falcons stadium and downtown Atlanta in the distance with blue skies above.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium and its neighboring Backyard, from the skies over Vine City. This vantage point stands to significantly change in the next couple of years with the construction of the 30-story Signia Hilton Hotel, on the sliver of land left of the grass. It’s part of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s 2020 Vision master plan.

UPDATED: February 3, 4:34 p.m. Recent weather cooperated, allowing for additional drone glimpses from various vantage points on Midtown and Buckhead.

A group of glassy high rise buildings with construction in the middle.
Colony Square construction in Midtown’s central business district.
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A section of Midtown where the skyline is expected to look quite different in a couple of years, with the new SCAD housing tower and artsy Canopy Hotel at left.
A overview of Atlanta and Atlantic Station with many trees in between.
A rare Atlanta vantage in which the skyline looks contiguous, spanning from downtown, left, to Atlantic Station and the many cranes of today’s Howell Mill Road corridor in West Midtown.
A group of glassy high-rise apartment towers.
From the core of commercial Buckhead, with the new 35-story Icon Buckhead tower at left. It’s the tallest addition to the subdistrict’s skyline since 2008’s Sovereign condos, shown at center, in the background.
A panorama of Buckhead in Atlanta with many building in white and glass.
A panorama of Buckhead today, with Lindbergh in the foreground.
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