Imagine if the old military base in Southwest Atlanta had a school, a grocery store, and lots of different housing options.
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That’s the vision developer Macauley Investments has for the 145-acre portion of Fort McPherson, which functioned as a U.S Army military base for more than a century until it closed in 2011.
The master plan unveiled Wednesday night, which is only a rough draft, showed a school surrounded by a few hundred apartments in the western portion of the property. Then traveling along Campbellton Road, the northern border of the land, would be a series of residential homes.
The historic buildings at the corner of Campbellton Road and Lee Street would be readapted. But there weren’t specifics as to what they would be readapted into.
The plans also showed a a bike or multi-purpose trail running parallel to Lee Street that would hopefully connect to the Oakland MARTA station.
Brian Hooker is the executive director of Fort Mac Local Redevelopment Authority, which is tasked with overseeing the development. He said a marketplace would be located in the southern portion of land.
“That’s where the retail, the restaurants, the community theater, the hotels will be,” he said. It’s also where the supermarket would go.
Christie Peters, who is the president of the Capitol View Neighborhood Association, was one of more than 100 people who attended the unveiling Wednesday night.
“Seeing long term residents be able to benefit from being able to walk to a health center or a job center or to a grocery store is the most exciting part of this for me because right now, they don’t have that,” she said. “And they’re probably the people who need it the most.”
Hooker said the timeline is to announce a final plan mid-May this year and for construction to begin by mid-2019.
He said the redevelopment authority hopes to put together public and private money to fund the project.
The new community’s neighbor will be Tyler Perry. He bought the remaining 330-acres of the base to transform into a film and production studio.
