Centennial Yards: Atlanta’s $5 Billion Megaproject to Revitalize Downtown

Atlanta – The $5 billion megaproject promises to bring hotels, entertainment and apartments to downtown Atlanta. Centennial Yards is part of a major redevelopment of what is commonly referred to as the Gulch. It’s a 50-acre parcel of land between the Five Points MARTA station and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The only thing that won’t be there is affordable housing. The developer will not include below market rate units in the new high rise they are building right now. Instead, CIM Group chose to pay a multimillion-dollar fee rather than set aside apartments for low-income Atlanta residents.

Centennial Yards will be home to a 304-unit high-rise apartment building called The Mitchell. “Centennial Yards is connected to at least two MARTA stations within walking distance,” said City Councilman Jason Dozier (Ward 4). “I absolutely want this development to have affordable housing.”

However, the councilman won’t get that, at least not in Mitchell. The CIM Group has decided not to allocate any units for affordable housing. “I think it’s a bad decision,” Dozier said.

CIM initially agreed to reserve 20 percent of the building for subsidized rentals as part of a multibillion-dollar incentive package. But the developer cited a slowdown in the real estate market as the reason for the change of course. Instead, CIM contributed $8.5 million to a fund to build affordable housing on the West Side. “I hope that the entry fee that they pay will help other families, even if they are not involved in the construction of Centennial Yards, have the opportunity to live in the city at an affordable price,” Dozier said.

CIM will not speak on camera with FOX 5. However, the company said in a statement that it made the decision “at a time when we have seen a significant slowdown in real estate investment and development.”

Matt Garbett, co-founder of the advocacy group ThreadATL, says he wanted the city to force the developer to meet its obligations to provide affordable housing at Centennial Yards. “The city missed an opportunity,” Garbett said. “They could say, ‘You’re going to do this instead,’ but you’d still have to demand maybe not 20 percent affordable housing, you could do 10 percent.”

Dozier says he wants the city to encourage developers to be more responsible in building affordable housing in the future.

The building is scheduled to open next year.