Anyone who walked to a match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium this spring, or turned out for Atlanta Streets Alive, likely noticed something missing just south of the stadium: several blocks of 1990s-era apartment buildings are simply gone.
The land is the former Northside Plaza apartments site - about eight acres spread across three blocks in Castleberry Hill, bounded by M.L.K. Jr. Drive, Northside Drive, Markham Street and others. All structures have now been cleared. Portions of the acreage were once owned by Friendship Baptist Church, which was relocated to make way for the stadium ahead of its 2017 opening.
Atlanta-based developer Carter, best known for rebuilding Summerhill's retail district after the Braves left for Cobb County, is studying the site for redevelopment, according to recent city filings and reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Both Carter and Integral Group, the apartments' property management company, have confirmed the blocks are being analyzed, though the structure of any deal remains unclear.
Per the AJC, entities tied to Arthur Blank's AMB Sports and Entertainment began assembling the properties in 2015 and eventually paid roughly $29 million for ownership.
Carter's filings point toward a mix of uses leaning heavily on residential and retail, with the stated aim of further activating the area. Specific scope, unit counts and timelines have not been disclosed, and Carter had not responded to questions about the project as of the source report.
The site would land in the middle of a stretch of downtown that has changed more in the past five years than in the previous thirty. Centennial Yards, the $5 billion megaproject filling the old Gulch, has delivered its first two high-rise towers, with the Cosm venue anchoring its entertainment district. A row of four-story modern townhomes has taken shape along Markham Street, immediately next to the cleared land. And across Northside Drive, the nearly $20 million renovation of the 1950s Phillis Wheatley Westside YWCA is due to wrap this year.
For a neighborhood that has spent a decade absorbing stadium-adjacent change, eight contiguous cleared acres is an unusually large blank slate - and, for now, an open question.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published April 2026.
