Eight years after the Peachtree-Pine shelter permanently closed, its prominent building at the seam between downtown and Midtown has a future.
Emory University announced plans to create more than 50 apartments for its healthcare employees across the street from Emory University Hospital Midtown, through adaptive reuse of two buildings that are each more than a century old. Emory has brought in historic preservation specialists for the work.
The two buildings
The first is the longtime former shelter at 477 Peachtree St., which Emory bought in 2018. The university plans to restore its Peachtree Street facade and completed an internal cleanup and abatement earlier this year to prepare the building for conversion.
Next door at 489 Peachtree St. is the Peasant Building, purchased in 2019. Its condition is poor enough that the rear half will be cleaved off, a partial demolition that will also let windows and natural light reach some of the apartments in the former shelter beside it.
What comes next
Emory filed for a Special Administrative Permit with the city, the required step for the redevelopment to move forward. Federal and state historic tax credits will be needed to offset initial capital costs and make the reuse financially viable.
Robin Morey, Emory's vice president of campus services and chief planning officer, said the resulting apartments will be competitively priced for hospital employees working across the street.
The building's history
477 Peachtree spent years as the region's largest and most contested homeless shelter, and its closure in 2017 came after prolonged legal and political conflict. The building has stood mostly empty since, on one of the most visible corners between the two districts.
Converting it to workforce housing for a hospital directly across the street is an unusually direct match of building to use, and it puts more than 50 residents onto a stretch of Peachtree Street that has had almost none.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published July 2025.