Developers Steer $450 Million Atlanta Mall Redo Back on Track

After years of false starts, a long-awaited redevelopment of Atlanta’s Mall West End is moving forward.

New York-based developers BRP Companies and The Prusik Group filed plans to demolish the 1970s mall and replace it with a $450 million mixed-use complex, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The proposal for the shuttered mall, at 850 Oak Street South West, calls for about 1,000 residential units, a 150-key hotel and 120,000 square feet of retail, with a substantial affordability component baked in.

The project, branded One West End, has sputtered in the past. Three redevelopment efforts collapsed between 2019 and 2023, including an earlier version led by BRP and Prusik. Last fall, the city stepped in to keep the vision alive, helping the developers close on the $29 million purchase of the property with a $10 million boost from affiliated organizations. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens called the deal “a long-awaited new era for the West End,” as well as a commitment to the community rather than just another real estate project.

Specific designs haven’t been finalized, but the filing laid out broad strokes: the enclosed mall will be razed and the site reconfigured into a walkable four-block grid. Nearly a third of the apartments will have below-market rents. Another third may serve as student housing, targeting the nearby Atlanta University Center Consortium, home to historically Black colleges including Spelman, Morehouse and Clark Atlanta.

Affordability is expected to be a key feature. The city last year said 20 percent of the apartments would go to households earning half of area median income — about $48,000 for a family of four — with another 10 percent reserved for households earning up to 80 percent of AMI.

The mall, about a mile from Center Parc Stadium, has long been seen as an underused redevelopment gem and part of momentum for affordable housing mixed with other uses in the area. The project is similar to the Atlanta Beltline project in Bankhead, a $270 million mixed-use community with an affordable housing component on 31 acres at 425 Chappell Road. City efforts were revealed in July to locate a developer to transform a long-vacant elementary school into a residential and neighborhood-retail hub as part of its expanding push to repurpose public land for affordable housing.— Eric Weilbacher