ATLANTA, Ga. — The city of Atlanta’s development arm has signed off on a $330 million bond deal to help rebuild Amsterdam Walk, the aging 11-acre commercial strip on Monroe Drive beside the BeltLine’s Northeast Trail.
Invest Atlanta, the economic development authority for the City of Atlanta, approved the lease-purchase bond this week. In that kind of deal, the authority keeps title to the land while the project is built. Developer Portman Holdings leases the site and makes payments that retire the bonds, and ownership is settled once the debt is gone.
Plans call for roughly 1,100 rental apartments, about 150,000 square feet of shops and offices and 1,435 parking spaces, built in phases. Portman has said some of the apartments will be set aside as affordable housing. The land, which used to hold offices and stores, sits where Virginia-Highland meets Morningside, close to Piedmont Park.
That location is a big part of the pitch. Virginia-Highland is a walkable historic neighborhood known for bungalow streets, independent shops and restaurants, and Piedmont Park and easy BeltLine access are what draw people to neighboring Midtown. The BeltLine itself is a trail corridor that links a string of parks around the city.
The project already drew $15 million last month from the Beltline Tax Allocation District to pay for roads, utilities and the first 539 apartments, and that award was controversial. Neighbors worry the build-out will add cars to Monroe Drive, which is being narrowed through a road diet. Atlanta school board member Ken Zeff argued in a letter that tax breaks that large should come with a clear public payoff.
Portman’s Atlanta portfolio runs from the Hyatt Regency and Peachtree Center downtown to newer projects such as Junction at Krog and the Coda tower in Tech Square.
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