Site Once Pitched As Atlanta's Tallest Residential Tower To Become A Park
An infamously fallow Midtown site that has been the source of sky-high development ambitions is now set to become a public park.
The Midtown Improvement District is under contract to purchase 98 14th St. from Benmark Capital and Peachtree Group, Kevin Green, CEO of Midtown Alliance, confirmed to Bisnow. Midtown Alliance runs the day-to-day operations of the BID.
“This is seen as a generational opportunity with a cooling market,” Green said said. “It’s the biggest and boldest thing we’ve ever done.”
The Midtown BID, a landlord organization funded by special property taxes from the neighborhood, plans to preserve the 4-acre site as green space that could accommodate various forms of programming, including performances and the arts, Green said.
Green declined to comment on specifics of the pending sale, which is expected to close in May. But the organization is raising 20-year, tax-exempt, general obligation bonds to finance the purchase, the first time Midtown Alliance will take on debt. The bonds are expected to be filed this week, Green said.
“There’s a lot of opportunities here. I hesitate to call it a park because people think of a grassy meadow where people lounge around and throw Frisbees,” Green said. “I think about how this site can become one of the best free things to do in Atlanta.”
The undeveloped site near the intersection of 14th and Peachtree streets is in the heart of Midtown proper, next to towers like One Atlantic Center and 1180 Peachtree and across 14th Street from the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta. It has been a site where multiple developers have tried and failed to build their own towering projects.
Earlier this century, the site was targeted for a new Atlanta Symphony Orchestra music hall, but those plans faltered during the Great Recession. It was sold in 2014 to New York-based Olympia Heights Management, which announced plans for a three-tower project that would include a condominium tower that would span 60 stories. The plan was eventually revisioned into a single luxury condo tower with office space called No2 Opus Place.
But Olympia Heights struggled to realize those dreams, and in 2023, it lost the parcel to foreclosure to its lender, the partnership between Benmark Capital and Atlanta-based Peachtree Group. Peachtree Group CEO Greg Friedman declined to comment.
Olympia Heights graded the site and developed a $3M sales center for its project — which remains there to this day — but 98 14th St. has nevertheless remained an eyesore to the area.
Green said the final vision for the site is still to be determined, although Midtown Alliance already asked members in a survey this month what uses they would like to see at the site.
The group plans to issue a request for qualifications to design firms and developers to create a publicly accessible gathering space that will be flexible for various programs, including possible festivals. Once a design is established, Green said the organization will begin a capital campaign to raise funds to build the park.
“This is not a site where you’d have a Music Midtown scale thing, [but] art and performance would seem to have a role here,” Green said. “How to make a site that’s flexible so it can accommodate lots of different things at different times in the day? Look to public spaces that work around the world. There needs to be places to get a cup of coffee or wine.”
