After years of planning and construction, a Sweet Auburn development its backers have called Atlanta's premiere equity project is opening.
A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for the first phase of Front Porch, the mixed-income infill development at 348 and 364 Auburn Ave. that replaced vacant property on the corridor. The Historic District Development Corporation, which spearheaded the project, describes the $37 million effort as the first catalytic project on the historic street in nearly two decades.
The housing
Front Porch's first residential section holds 33 co-living, dormitory-style units containing 67 beds. Seventy-eight percent are affordable to households earning 60 percent of the area median income or less.
The fully furnished apartments are aimed at students and young professionals, starting at $1,400 per month with all utilities included. In a neighborhood a short walk from Georgia State University and the Atlanta Streetcar line, that is a deliberate fit.
Cheneé Joseph, HDDC president and CEO, said the project is about making prime urban living attainable in one of Atlanta's most cherished historic districts.
The scale
The full development spans 100,000 square feet and broke ground in the summer of 2022, designed to combine housing and commercial space in a way that generates both vibrancy and jobs on a corridor that has struggled with disinvestment and blight.
Roughly 20,000 square feet of rooftop gardens are planned across the project. Cooper Carry and Syntony Design Collaborative both contributed to the designs.
Why Auburn Avenue
Auburn Avenue carries as much history as any street in the city and, for long stretches of it, a persistent gap between that significance and its physical condition. Vacant parcels along the corridor have outlasted multiple redevelopment cycles elsewhere in Atlanta.
A project that puts 67 beds, most of them income-restricted, onto two of those parcels is a modest number in citywide terms and a meaningful one here. Whether it proves catalytic, as HDDC hopes, depends on what follows it.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published April 2025.