The long transformation of Atlanta's Boulevard corridor took another concrete step in January 2024, as Wingate Multifamily began demolition on Boulevard North — an 88-unit affordable housing project roughly two blocks from Ponce City Market in Old Fourth Ward.
The site, spanning from 579 Boulevard to 495 Boulevard Place, previously held four two-story apartment buildings, all since razed, sitting just south of the Amoco station at Boulevard and North Avenue. Wingate Multifamily — a new affiliate of the Massachusetts-based Wingate Companies, already a major Boulevard property owner — closed on the land and declared construction underway, marking the fourth phase of the company's "City Lights" master plan for the corridor.
The five-story building will house families relocating from Bedford Pines, often described as the Southeast's largest Section 8 housing complex. Invest Atlanta approved a $40 million lease-purchase bond for the project in 2022; all units will rent at rates accessible to households earning 60 percent of the area median income or less, with HUD assistance capping resident rent contributions at 30 percent of income. Under Invest Atlanta's 2022 figures, that put the smallest studios (549 square feet) at $1,275 a month and the largest three-bedrooms (1,143 square feet) at $1,900. Amenities are planned to include laundry facilities on every floor, a fitness center, a private courtyard, after-school programming, and a business center.
Wingate expects Boulevard North to finish construction in July 2025, which would bring 387 of Bedford Pines' original 733 units through redevelopment. The company has also said it expects to close on the next phase — North Block — by the end of the year, with a final phase, City Lights South, still pursuing 4 percent tax credits through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. All told, roughly 700 additional units of affordable and market-rate housing remain in the City Lights pipeline along Boulevard.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published January 2024.
