Transit Oriented Development Breaking New Ground in Atlanta

“MARTA and city of Atlanta leaders [recently] marked the start of the system’s newest “transit-oriented development,” the first of a series of new generation developments at its stations to boost ridership and drive urban development,” reports J. Scott Trubey.

Atlanta-based development firm Columbia Ventures will lease currently underused parking lots to spend $40 million building 224 apartments, retail, restaurants, a park, and a performing arts center at the Edgewood/Candler Park station.

The project is only the latest in MARTA’s transit oriented development efforts. “The office, retail and residential development around MARTA’s Lindbergh station is the system’s best-known prior example,” writes Trubey, but there are other developments in various stages at the Arts Center, Chamblee, Brookhaven/Oglethorpe, King Memorial and Avondale stations.

Trubey also notes that a half-cent sales tax measure on the ballot for November, intended to raise funding for the expansion of the MARTA system, would also “lead to other opportunities for MARTA to stimulate development near its stations…”