Youngwoo Files New BeltLine Development Plan, Still Hopes To Build Data Center Despite Ban

A New York developer with a long-stalled West Midtown development site is asking the city to exempt his property from the just-passed data center ban along the Atlanta BeltLine. 

Youngwoo & Associates founder Young Woo told Bisnow Wednesday evening that he has petitioned the city of Atlanta to grandfather in his 17-acre site at 1611 Ellsworth Industrial Blvd. in the Blandtown neighborhood to allow the development of a 400K SF data center.

Youngwoo filed an application with the city on Aug. 30 to build an 800K SF mixed-use development on the site along Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard and Huber Street. 

Woo, who has owned the site for more than two decades, told Bisnow he planned to develop a data center there before the Atlanta City Council passed a data center development ban this week on all sites within the BeltLine overlay zoning district, where 1611 Ellsworth is situated.

“Data center is the right use, in my opinion,” Woo said. “That’s what we asked them to consider. So we don’t know how this thing is going to turn out.”

Officials with the city didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new permit application represents a change from Youngwoo’s original plans for 1611 Ellsworth, announced in 2019, which sought to convert the mid-20th-century warehouse into a 200K SF mixed-use project that included 90K SF of retail and restaurant space and 70K SF of loft office. At the time, the firm had projected finishing the project by 2020, but work never began. 

Woo said he has been plagued by delays in starting redevelopment of the site since he bought it for roughly $1M in 1996. He said the last plan was disrupted by the pandemic, and now the rise in interest rates has made it difficult to find lenders willing to offer financing for anything aside from data centers.

“We tried to build so many times, and for one thing or another, we couldn’t build,” Woo said.

Youngwoo lists the project as Radio 1611 on its website, a 200K SF mixed-use community with renderings that show buildings rising on stilts above the tree canopy. In 2019, Steady Hand Beer Co. opened a 14K SF brewery and taphouse next to 1611 Ellsworth Industrial. The site sits across from a Topgolf. 

Youngwoo doesn't mention a data center component to the project in the latest application with the city. 

“The applicant proposes a future multi-phased dynamic mixed-use industrial development for that aims to significantly enhance the current site and provide more public space and activation,” says the application, submitted by HDR Engineering of the Carolinas. “This permit involves the land disturbance to prepare for supporting the development’s substation.”

Earlier this year, Woo tapped Avison Young to sell the 17-acre site. According to a flyer, the site was being marketed as a potential data center development or a site that could be rezoned to allow for more mixed-use density.

It is unclear if Avison Young is still marketing the property. Officials with the firm declined to comment. Woo told Bisnow in an email Wednesday that he had an “acceptable” amount of interest in buying the property “because of our location and size.”

“I wish that they'd approve our application,” Woo said over the phone. “If we can build data centers, that’d be great. But if not, I don’t know what.”