College Park Seeks Developers For 311-Acre Development Formerly Known As 'Airport City'
A prime parcel of 311 acres just outside Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is heading out to market, seeking a developer to turn it into a hub of hotels, retail, offices and residential.
The city of College Park’s Business and Industrial Development Authority has tapped Stream Realty Partners to market the sprawling site known as Six West for sale. The site is bounded by Camp Creek Parkway, Herschel Road, Redwine Avenue and the College Park Historic District.
“The investor community needs to know the city took its plan through zoning. This is a fully entitled site,” College Park Economic Development Director Michelle Alexander said. “Most sites in the region would take a couple years just to entitle a project of this scale, but College Park has done that work already.”
Stream plans to market the property for sale either in whole or in pieces to private developers who could see out the vision of a master-planned, mixed-use community to include numerous hotels, retailers and restaurants, entertainment venues, medical offices, tech incubators and a Class-A office building.
Six West is the latest iteration of College Park’s plans for what it initially titled Airport City when it launched the planned development in 2018, including a comprehensive master plan designed by architectural firm Sizemore Group in 2019. At the time, Sizemore envisioned a project encompassing 5M SF of office, six hotels, 758K SF of retail and a golf-related entertainment venue.
The city is nearing completion of the infrastructure work on the property, including competing Lottie Miller Boulevard — the primary corridor that connects the entire site together — and a new pedestrian bridge that connects the existing Gateway Center Arena @ College Park and the Georgia International Convention Center to Six West, Alexander said.
“We never stopped working toward this vision,” College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom told Bisnow Tuesday. “Despite economic headwinds, we have been very focused on seeing this project to fruition.”
Stream Realty Managing Director Bryan Heller, Senior Vice President Christopher Dean, Senior Vice President Virginia Crabtree and Senior Associate Malik Leaphart are marketing the land for sale.
Heller said the marketing process is still in the early stages, with packages officially heading out to prospective developers later this year. Sizemore’s master plan is acting as an outline, but what developers want to do with the project could shift the mix of uses that get built, Heller said.
“We certainly will rely on the Sizemore master plan for context, but we also need to check the pulse of the development community in 2023 and implement the most viable solution or solutions for the site as a whole,” Heller wrote in an email.
College Park issued a request for proposals for brokers to market the property, and awarded it to Stream because of the firm’s connections to the development and tenant communities, Motley Broom said, noting the firm’s experience in leasing the Lee + White mixed-use project. Motley Broom said that experience gave Stream the edge in understanding how to market Atlanta’s Southside neighborhoods to the development community.
“One of the most impressive things about Stream’s approach is the relationships they already forged in the market, the relationships they can bring to the table with players who may not know about this project,” Motley Broom said. “Stream has proven themselves as a top player in Metro Atlanta market, and their plan for Six West and their detailed proposal for how they would work with us and how they would market the site was impressive.”
The city remains under contract to sell a parcel to a hotel developer, a deal slated to close this year, Alexander wrote in an email. Aside from the hotel, Alexander wrote that the city anticipates that residential and retail space with restaurants, stores, entertainment venues and service businesses will be among the first buildings to rise on the property.
With an influx of new housing, Six West could also combat College Park’s shrinking population base, Motley Broom said. The city’s population dropped nearly 1% between 2020 and 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
“There's no question people want to live in the Aerotropolis region,” she said. “With new housing options in the Six West development and elsewhere in College Park, we expect robust population growth in the coming years.”
Heller and Crabtree said College Park is ripe for commercial development after being overlooked by retailers for decades. That demand was proven with Lee + White, she said.
“I think it’s just been underserved historically,” Crabtree said. “We think the development of the Southside is long overdue.”
Land immediately around the airport has historically been in high demand for logistics companies and with industrial developers. That remains true today.
Despite an overall slowdown in industrial demand in Metro Atlanta, the need for warehouse space in the airport submarket — which includes College Park, Union City, Hapeville, South Fulton County and portions of Clayton County and Fairburn — has maintained amid a shortage of supply, industrial developers said at a June Bisnow event.
But Motley Broom said residents want commercial developments around them other than warehouses, while other businesses are realizing that there is untapped demand in College Park. Stream, Motley Broom said, is being tasked to amplify that message to the commercial real estate community.
"Time and time again, companies that have chosen the Southside recognize it is the right side. That it's not all about warehouse," she said. "We have the demand for other uses."
