Page 21 - 952 Northern Ave. SE

Reynoldstown Beltline ‘beachfront’

GOODBYE STEIN STEEL!

Bert Stein, the company’s
president, received a whopping
35 proposals from different
developers eager to purchase
the land and remake it. From
those, Stein picked plans
compiled by homebuilder Empire
Communities, a company with
roots in Canada that’s slowly
spread across the Southeast and
Texas the past 25 years, with
more explosive growth recently
across intown Atlanta.

Empire officials say the site’s
blocks will be divided into
three distinct districts—the Milltown, Modern Hybrid, and Modern districts—denoted by different
architecture styles referencing Reynoldstown’s character and the site’s industrial history.

Within the districts will be 276 residential units, all of them for sale. Expect an array of product
types, from small one-bedroom condos to three-bedroom townhomes similar to other Empire
communities, which now span from East Lake to the Westside and Buckhead.

As for pricing, Saba Loghman, Empire’s director of acquisitions, says stacked condos and
townhomes should deliver in the $300,000s to $500,000s.

Pricing for units in a mid-rise building planned for the site’s northern end, near Wylie Street, is less
predictable “as costs and lumber are rapidly increasing right now,” Loghman says. But the range
should be roughly from the $400,000s to $800,000s, to include live-work units on the ground
floor fronting the BeltLine.

Also on that northern end, plans call for the lone non-residential component: an 8,000-square-
foot restaurant with an outdoor section along the Eastside Trail, as developed by former Paces
Properties principal Merritt Lancaster, now of Bridger Properties, whose past work includes Atlanta
Dairies and Krog Street Market.

One public-accessible facet will be incorporated near the
project’s mid-rise building, where Empire is donating a
half-acre to serve as an expansion of Lang-Carson Park,
as required by the city to offset some density. About 15
townhomes are planned to front it.