A unique warehouse conversion and expansion project is in the work for a section of Southwest Atlanta that’s become a hotbed for investment on potentially transformative scales.

Officials with Wisconsin-based developer Gorman & Company confirm to Urbanize Atlanta a mixed-income proposal is moving forward at 715 Whitehall St. in West End that could create nearly 200 housing options at the doorstep of a MARTA station where none exist today.

The transit-oriented proposal, called “The Residences at West End,” would keep a one-story, brick structure in place along Whitehall Street for use as commercial spaces, residential amenities, and parking.

Five additional stories would be built above that for 175 apartments with between one and three bedrooms, according to developers.

Draft designs call for a modern-style, linear project overlooking two active rail lines next door to MARTA’s West End station. However, all aspects of the project, including Gorman’s purchase of the circa-1930 warehouse property, are contingent on tax incentives at the state level.

Following earlier meetings with Invest Atlanta, NPU-T, and neighborhood groups, Gorman officials on Friday submitted the proposal to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for consideration for tax credit funding. The Georgia DCA is expected to make its decision this winter or in spring of next year, according to Gorman officials.

Gorman, a national firm focused on building affordable housing in seven core markets, including Atlanta, would be the Residences at West End project's developer, construction company, architect, and property manager, per officials.

The 1.1-acre property in question stands about two blocks south of the Mall West End, which city leaders recently purchased to build some 1.7 million square feet of development in coming years, costing to the tune of $450 million, alongside New York City-based developers.

An earlier proposal for the Whitehall Street warehouse complex called “WestLine Studios” did not come to fruition.

The project’s estimated cost is $73.5 million. The bulk of that—or more than $38 million—would be sourced from a tax-exempt bond from the Georgia DCA, according to preliminary numbers in the NPU presentation.

The Residences at West End would rent apartments at rates capped for tenants earning between 30 and 80 percent of the area median income, with a small portion (tentatively nine) renting for market rate. About half of the apartments would rent at 50 percent AMI, per the earlier presentation.

Access to the airport, downtown, and ground-floor retail are cited as perks of the project.

The site is roughly five blocks north of the BeltLine’s Westside Trail and the Lee + White food, beverage, and office district.

Directly across the MARTA tracks in Adair Park is sprawling former warehouse complex the Met Atlanta, now a hub for makers and artists, that was bought for $70 million last month by a Charlotte-based subsidiary of healthcare company Atrium Health.

Elsewhere in Atlanta, Gorman plans to break ground in coming weeks on a mixed-use project called Sweet Auburn Grande in the shadow of downtown.

The company has also completed projects Hamilton Hills across the street from MARTA’s westernmost station and the Residences at Westview, a 60-unit affordable housing complex near Westview Cemetery. Development officials said during the latter project’s ribbon-cutting in February they expect to deliver 350 new housing units across Atlanta within the next couple of years.

Gorman’s tentative timeline in West End, should financing pan out, calls for finalizing designs in late 2025 and breaking ground early the following year. The building could start leasing in summer 2027 if the project stays on that track, per the developer.

Find more context and images for this latest West End proposal in the gallery above.

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• West End news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)

As first reported on these pages last month, Amtrak’s general and legislative annual report for fiscal year 2025 includes a request for nearly $30 million in federal funding to secure a development site for a new intercity rail hub in Atlanta—and to start the process of building it.

Officials with America’s National Railroad Passenger Corporation have now responded to our inquiries to praise Atlanta’s potential as a strategic hub location, but they aren’t divulging where it could possibly be built in the city.  

Amtrak has pinpointed intown Atlanta for a new station that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and, eventually, reestablish the city as the important rail hub it historically was. It’s part of Amtrak’s ambitious national growth spurt and hiring spree. According to Amtrak’s report, some of the Atlanta land in question is “at imminent risk of development,” but the location is referred to only vaguely as being in downtown Atlanta.

Whether “downtown” in this case actually means downtown Atlanta, or is a general reference to more urban parts of the city, isn't yet clear.

In response to questions regarding to the potential hub’s location and development process, Amtrak officials supplied a statement Tuesday that reads, in part, “We are excited to work with local, state, federal, and railroad partners to help secure a site for an improved and expanded Amtrak station in Atlanta.”

Being that three Atlanta-anchored rail corridors have been accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program, “a new [Atlanta] station could support existing service as well as future expansion,” Amtrak’s statement continues. “Securing funding will support the initial planning and design, and advance the project toward creating a new station to meet the needs of customers and is worthy of a major metropolitan region.”

As revealed in June, Amtrak’s $29.9 million grant request for “Atlanta Hub” would support property acquisition to preserve future railroad right-of-way and "ensure that the Hub station site can be connected with existing main line track,” per the report. The funding would also help cover early phase prerequisites such as engineering and work to have the project cleared under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

But that funding would only be a start. Amtrak estimates the new Atlanta facility would cost roughly $700 million once needed infrastructure investments are factored in. That includes new trackage to separate passenger service from freight operations.

Amtrak has signaled interest in recent years to reestablish Atlanta as a predominant railroad hub, with routes fingering out to Charlotte, Nashville, Macon, Montgomery, Birmingham, Savannah, and other cities. Today, just one Amtrak line serves Atlanta—the New York City-to-New Orleans Crescent.

Amtrak’s report states the modernized new station would boost the customer experience on the Crescent route and link Atlanta with new intercity passenger trains to cities small and large—Chattanooga, Greenville, SC, Memphis, and Meridian, MS are all named—in addition to the airport.  

The grant request isn’t tied to any proposals already moving through the FRA’s Corridor Identification and Development program process, but it’s compatible with that effort, per Amtrak.

In 2022, the Atlanta City Council passed a resolution urging Amtrak to consider downtown as a viable location for a rail hub; at the time, the $5-billion Centennial Yards megaproject was considered the leading alternative, with the Armour Yards district near Lindbergh also being mentioned.

In April, Armour Yards was revealed as one of four locations where Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to see BeltLine-connected MARTA infill stations built in coming years, though how those would be funded remains a question mark.

Meanwhile, Centennial Yards has seen fencing erected this week to restrict Gulch parking access and begin development of its next phase, an 8-acre entertainment district scheduled to be operational in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, as the AJC reports. 

Atlanta’s current Amtrak station, as the report details, was built in 1918 in what was then a suburban setting, designed for a small number of passengers. Other drawbacks include no parking, no connections to local transit, an undersized waiting room, and poor access from the station building to its single platform below, which is a particular challenge for disabled passengers, the report notes.

The request for Atlanta funding came as part of $4 billion in Amtrak grant requests for base needs and modernization of its system as passenger numbers are on the uptick. According to CEO Stephen Gardner, Amtrak is on pace to grow its ridership to 66 million annual passengers—more than doubling peak ridership in pre-pandemic 2019—by 2040. In fiscal year 2025, Amtrak expects ridership to reach nearly 35 million.  

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• Downtown news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)