Kaiser Buys Site in Atlanta for Health Care Facility

A health care heavyweight quietly made a big land grab just south of Downtown Atlanta, snapping up a swath of Summerhill property without saying exactly what it plans to build there.

Kaiser Permanente paid $31.5 million for roughly 7 acres in the neighborhood, calling the acquisition a “first step” toward a future project aimed at improving access to care, according to an announcement Monday first reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Beyond that, the California-based provider has kept its cards close, declining to offer details or a timeline.

Whatever ultimately rises on the site is likely to be where new health care capacity is very much in need, particularly on the Southside and Westside. Atlanta officials have been under mounting pressure since Wellstar shuttered Atlanta Medical Center in 2022, forcing Grady Memorial Hospital to absorb more trauma cases and straining an already fragile safety net system, according to the outlet. The former AMC campus at 340 Boulevard North East has since been demolished, clearing the way for a potential mixed-use redevelopment.

Kaiser’s Summerhill purchase centers on 41 Fulton Street, a former Braves parking lot and a surface lot used for Georgia State University football games at Center Parc Stadium. The seller was Animal, an Atlanta real estate firm that bought 10.3 acres in 2024. Animal is holding onto a nearby 3-acre parcel fronting Georgia Avenue and Hank Aaron Drive, positioning it for its own future development, according to the outlet.

The political urgency is already there, as in the last year, Mayor Andre Dickens floated using $115 million from the Beltline’s tax allocation district for an unspecified health care project and has repeatedly urged Fulton County and the state to step up on medical access. In a separate move, Atrium Health paid nearly $70 million in 2024 for a 40-acre site near the West End MARTA station, widely rumored as a future hospital site, according to the publication.

The Kaiser-controlled lots sit across the street from GSU’s under-construction baseball stadium and in the heart of a neighborhood that has undergone a dramatic turnaround since the Braves decamped for Cobb County in 2017, according to the publication. Thousands of apartments and new retail, including a Publix, have reshaped Summerhill into one of the city’s more active mixed-use districts.

Kaiser said it plans a “deliberate planning process” with the community before finalizing its vision. With about 426,000 members in metro Atlanta and Athens, Kaiser already has a sizable presence in Georgia.

— Eric Weilbacher