An unusual infill project is planned for the corridor between the Beltline's Eastside Trail and downtown, and it would grow out of a coffee shop.
501 Edgewood proposes a timber-built, mixed-use expansion rising to four stories total above the masonry and steel commercial building occupied for a decade by Chrome Yellow, the Old Fourth Ward coffeeshop and dry goods store.
The point of the building
According to the Georgia Mass Timber Collective, the project is intended as a showcase for how relatively light mass timber can meet sustainability standards, modernize existing structures, and let new construction blend into historic neighborhood fabric.
That combination is the argument for mass timber on infill sites: a lighter structural system can be added above an existing building that could not carry concrete or steel, which turns single-story commercial buildings into candidates for density without demolishing them.
The team
Atlanta-based NO Architecture designed the project at 16,000 square feet total. The developer is Welborn Henson, an Atlanta millwork manufacturer that plans to fabricate some of the timber components itself.
NO Architecture's other Atlanta work includes the Hosea and 2nd project in East Lake and the Terminal South food and retail hub in Peoplestown.
Approvals
A Special Administrative Permit for 501 Edgewood was approved by the Beltline Design Review Committee earlier this year, according to Atlanta's Department of City Planning. The project was also one of three selected in October by the Georgia Forestry Foundation.
If built, it would be one of the more visible mass timber demonstrations in the city, on a corridor where the scale of the existing buildings has kept most redevelopment proposals modest.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published July 2025.