Integral Tapped To Lead Mixed-Use Redevelopment Of Atlanta Medical Center

Wellstar Health Systems has tapped The Integral Group to revamp the Atlanta Medical Center campus in the Old Fourth Ward, which the hospital system controversially shuttered in 2022. 

Integral, founded by Egbert Perry, is a pioneer of mixed-income housing, which is expected to be a central focus of the sweeping redevelopment plan. The firm plans to immediately apply for permits to bulldoze portions of the property.

The development team also said in a press release that it will meet with neighborhood and community leaders for feedback on the ultimate design of the mixed-use campus. The Atlanta City Council last month approved a general land use plan for the 22-acre property in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

“This master development project is a significant milestone, as it marks a major private investment in a neighborhood that is central to Atlanta’s future,” Perry, chairman of Integral, said in a statement. “This redevelopment is about much more than buildings. It’s about revitalizing a community with empathy and foresight.”

While details of the redevelopment plan were sparse, Wellstar said in the release that it would include affordable housing, residential properties, community green space, retail, commercial and health spaces, and new street access.

The announcement comes two years after Wellstar closed the Atlanta Medical Center because of declining revenues and surging costs, leaving the city with just a single Level 1 trauma center at Grady Memorial Hospital. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens passed a series of moratoriums to stop any development on the site from happening before the city had a chance to weigh in.

Since then, Dickens' administration has worked to draft a land use plan to help shape the vision for what the campus would become. The last moratorium expired Oct. 15, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“Through direct engagement with the Old Fourth Ward and surrounding stakeholders, we now have an opportunity to create an inclusive, forward-looking and thriving new development that meets the community’s needs for affordable housing, green space and safe streets — while maintaining some medical use and retaining the neighborhood’s unique character,” Dickens said. 

Some community leaders previously expressed concerns about the lack of additional medical care that was part of the redevelopment plan. The loss of the hospital has constrained medical care for residents of the majority-Black community, a third of whom live in poverty, Fox 5 Atlanta previously reported.

“We don’t have a hospital, and we don’t have people properly taken care of. It’s a major problem,” Jon’Luk Young, an organizer with the nonprofit voter registration group New Georgia Project, told Fox 5 in August.

Wellstar spokesperson Matt O’Connor told the AJC that the new development would involve some form of health and wellness, but he didn't specify the type of facilities it would operate.

Perry said in the release that Integral would solicit community input “at every stage” of the development, which will occur over several years. Integral plans to begin demolishing “certain aging structures” in the first quarter, according to the release.

“These properties have enormous potential to meet our city’s and the neighborhood’s need for more dense, mixed-use development, including, hopefully, new housing,” Atlanta City Council Member Amir Farokhi said in the release.