A newly approved plan to raze most of the idle Atlanta Medical Center (AMC) and transform the 22-acre site into Old Fourth Ward’s next major mixed-use destination includes an affordable housing promise — a rare perk in the fast-gentrifying, neighborhood, where about 31% of the population lives in poverty.
Property-owner Wellstar Health System shuttered AMC in 2022, leaving Grady Memorial Hospital as the city’s only Level 1 trauma center for adults. It announced last week it had tapped local affordable housing developer Integral Group to lead the ambitious overhaul.
City leaders have approved the deal and lifted two years of zoning moratoriums on redeveloping the hospital campus, which were intended to give the community time for input. They expired last week.
“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,” Mayor Andre Dickens said in a Wellstar news release.
The news comes about four months after Atlanta Civic Circle reported on the site’s potential to offer much-needed affordable housing units in Old Fourth Ward, where property values have skyrocketed since the Beltline’s Eastside Trail snaked its way through the neighborhood in 2012.
City Councilmember Amir Farokhi, who represents the community around the AMC site, said in June that the property was “ripe for mixed-use development,” and “housing should be considered, given the site’s proximity to the city center, jobs, transit, parks, and strong retail.”
Last week, Farokhi added to that: “The selection of Integral to redevelop the main AMC campus is positive news,” he said in an email. “Integral understands Atlanta and Old Fourth Ward.”
“While the devil is in the details, I look forward to neighborhood conversations with Integral — and shovels in the ground,” he continued.
Redevelopment details — including how many affordable units could be produced, and at what price point — are so far scarce, but Integral spokesperson Rick White insisted in an email that “this project is a big deal — one of those moments that will help shape the future of Atlanta.”
“The vision for the 22-acre campus includes a vibrant, diverse mixed-use neighborhood with affordable housing, residential properties, community and public green space, neighborhood-level retail, new street access, commercial uses, and health and well-being resources,” an Integral statement says.
Dickens has signed off on the deal after spending two years urging Wellstar to reactivate the AMC site as a hospital. Its closure made Grady the only facility in town equipped to treat car wreck injuries or gunshot wounds, and with an emergency room that treats people with no insurance.
Asked whether the administration was satisfied with the vague healthcare promises in the initial Wellstar-Integral development plan, Dickens’ office referred Atlanta Civic Circle to Wellstar’s press release, which provides no additional details.
The Wellstar statement says: “The nature of the health and well-being component will be determined in collaboration with community stakeholders as part of Integral’s comprehensive planning process and will include an in-depth analysis of the area’s healthcare needs.”
Wellstar spokesperson Matthew O’Connor added, “Integral is working now to produce an implementation plan and timeline. The revitalization will occur in phases over the course of several years.”
Integral plans to begin applying for construction permits soon, the developer said in a statement, and could start demolishing AMC’s “aging structures” early next year.
This is part of a trend in the Macon/Atlanta area to begin building high rise low income tenements. History has shown concentrating the poor and sick in these tenaments bredds a target for crime and often fail in great disrepair and add to the suffering if the underpriveleged but allow the rick to be segregated and safe from lower classes. Integrate develop housing so there is diversity. These projects failed in the Northern area and created cess pools and put the crime victims in a convenient centralized spot.