Old Fourth Ward has a new landmark on its skyline, and it is now open for business. Forth Atlanta, New City Properties' $150 million, 16-story boutique hotel and social club, has begun accepting guests and diners on the block between the BeltLine's Eastside Trail and Historic Fourth Ward Park.
The name comes from a line attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Go forth into the busy world and love it.” It is a fitting sentiment for a property that functions as the centerpiece of New City's four-tower mixed-use district, built on 11 acres of former Georgia Power land the developer bought in 2018. Construction on phase one, hotel infrastructure included, began in the summer of 2020.
Forth carries 196 luxury hotel rooms plus 39 apartment-style units with hotel services attached, aimed at longer stays. That flex-stay hybrid has become a recognizable Atlanta format, showing up around Midtown and in the second phase of nearby Ponce City Market, and it hedges a hotel's exposure to the convention calendar by giving it a residential floor plate to fall back on.
Two food and beverage concepts are open now. Elektra is a fourth-floor, Mediterranean-influenced restaurant beside the pool, run by Atlanta chef Jonathan McDowell. Bar Premio, tucked off the lobby, works as a cafe during the day and shifts to a wine bar at night with small plates like charcuterie and affogato. Two more concepts are expected to follow, along with a ballroom and a 2,300-square-foot outdoor pool deck with lounge seating and cabanas shared by hotel guests and club members.
Nightly rates start around $254 in the weeks ahead for a 260-square-foot king room. The members-only social club, which project leaders describe as unlike anything else in the city, will add a spa and a large fitness and wellness center with programming and classes. Founding-member events were slated to begin later in the month, though membership pricing has not been advertised.
New York-based Morris Adjmi Architects designed the building, as it did the neighboring Overline Residences apartments, giving Forth a cast-in-place diagrid facade that reads as deliberately cold against interiors described as warm and welcoming. Designers cited contemporary European design and early Americana as the reference points. Philadelphia-based Method Co. operates the property.
For a neighborhood that has spent a decade absorbing new residential density, Forth is a different kind of arrival: a hospitality anchor sized to draw visitors who might otherwise never leave Midtown, dropped at the intersection of the city's most-used trail and one of its best parks.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published July 2024.
