A $57-million apartment building on Northside Drive just west of downtown has finished construction, and residents are already moving in. Herndon Square Phase II, branded Legacy at Herndon Square, holds 201 apartments in a six-story, 335,348-square-foot building with an attached parking deck, on former public housing land in English Avenue. Birmingham-based contractor Capstone Building Corp. says all construction work is complete after roughly two years on site.
The affordability math is the part that matters most for the neighborhood. Only 30 of the 201 units rent at market rate. The remaining 171 are Low Income Housing Tax Credit apartments reserved for households earning 30 to 80 percent of Area Median Income, and some of those require vouchers through Atlanta Housing's HomeFlex program. Floorplans run from one to three bedrooms. The smallest is a 605-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bath unit, with rents starting at $1,100. The highest asking rent posted now is $2,700 for an 1,100-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath unit on the third floor.
Amenities include a dog-washing station, a playground, a wellness clinic, a fitness center, and a computer business and learning center. The building wraps a large interior courtyard with greenspace and a covered picnic area, which project officials describe as the social center of the property.
Pennrose led the development in partnership with Hunt Companies, Oakwood Development, Atlanta Housing, and city agencies, with Thriven Design handling architecture. Invest Atlanta approved $41.5 million in tax-exempt bond financing toward the apartments in 2023. Capstone officials say the $57-million figure also covers infrastructure work supporting the rest of the master-planned community.
Herndon Square is not finished. A 97-unit senior housing building already opened and leased up quickly, and a third phase is under construction next door with 178 more one- to three-bedroom rentals, 151 of them at 30 to 80 percent AMI and 71 backed by HomeFlex vouchers, with delivery targeted for the second quarter of 2027. The full build-out calls for 379 multifamily units, 32 townhomes, and 30,000 square feet of retail fronting Northside Drive that is expected to bring a neighborhood grocery and fresh food access to English Avenue, though no timeline has been set for that piece.
The site sits next to the expanded Science Square district, a few blocks southwest of Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium, and about two blocks east of the Beltline's Westside Connector Trail. Project officials frame the housing as a way for residents to stay close to work as Science Square, Echo Street West, the Signia by Hilton hotel, and the Georgia World Congress Center collectively add a projected 5,000-plus permanent jobs in the coming years.
Original reporting: Urbanize Atlanta (2026-08-03)
