The Peachtree Street that runs through downtown does not stop at North Avenue, and neither does the argument over what it should be. A Midtown attorney has put forward an unsolicited proposal that would use the long-stalled Dewberry Capital site at 1155 Peachtree St. NE as the pivot point for converting Peachtree itself into a pedestrian boulevard through the heart of Midtown — a change that, if it ever happened, would reshape the north end of the same corridor downtown workers and residents use every day.
The author is David Reed, a patent litigation attorney and partner at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. He works out of the 1100 Peachtree building, directly across from the site, and says the view from his office has kept him following the city's limited ability to do anything about the property and the safety concerns that come with it.
That property is the former Campanile tower, stripped bare and sitting untouched since demolition work began more than six years ago. City inspectors this year declared the site "abandoned" and "dangerous and unsafe," a finding that prompted some Atlanta City Council members to push for action, including the possible use of the city's blight tax.
Reed's proposal starts from the premise that the building itself is the less interesting problem. Instead of another development on the parcel, he asks what it would take to make the site the catalyst for a walking street — something closer to Strøget in Copenhagen or Istiklal in Istanbul than to a standard Peachtree block. The mechanics he sketches: acquire the Dewberry property through eminent domain, then reroute southbound Peachtree traffic through the site over to Juniper Street, with traffic returning to Peachtree farther south by way of other surface lots below North Avenue.
His case for feasibility rests on capacity that already exists. The Downtown Connector, Spring Street, West Peachtree Street and Juniper Street all carry north-south traffic, and Reed points to Atlanta Streets Alive and the Beltline as evidence that the city has an appetite for car-free public space. He also notes that the highway capping proposals now under discussion mean a lot of people are already thinking hard about what Midtown looks like in the future. He concedes the idea may be completely impractical, but frames it as a chance to flip the Dewberry problem into an opportunity that might not come around again.
Nothing here is before the council, GDOT or the mayor's office. It is a letter to the editor with a rough sketch attached, published as part of Urbanize Atlanta's Bureau of Big Ideas series. What gives it weight is the underlying fact it rests on: a high-profile Peachtree parcel has sat dead for six years, the city's enforcement tools have not moved it, and the vacuum is now attracting proposals from people with no development stake at all.
Original reporting: Urbanize Atlanta (2026-08-05)