The southeast corner of Boulevard and Highland Avenue has been a hole in the neighborhood for years - three-plus idle acres behind the shuttered Desperate Housewares furniture store, on a gateway block between downtown and the BeltLine's Eastside Trail. After four years in pre-development, it is finally a construction site.
The Bowery at Old Fourth Ward, a joint venture between Fuqua Development and Northwood Ravin, spans 3.3 acres and calls for a 273-unit apartment building plus two townhome blocks holding 12 units, for 285 homes total. Roughly 10,000 square feet of street-level retail with patio space is planned, along with another 2,000 square feet of retail or incubator space oriented toward the dog park next door.
That dog park - Freedom Barkway - sits outside the construction boundary and stays put. The project's 400-space parking deck will set aside 17 spaces for its patrons.
The developers closed on the site in summer 2023 at roughly $4 million per acre. That same year, Develop Fulton approved $5.7 million in tax savings across 10 years for the three-building project, which consumes close to a full block.
The most-discussed piece of The Bowery is the one that fell out. Early plans anticipated a full-size grocery store for the neighborhood, reportedly a Publix. According to Northwood Ravin, Wellstar's abrupt closure of nearby Atlanta Medical Center - which took jobs and a large daytime population out of the area - combined with the city's subsequent clampdown on rezoning hospital property, scared off prospective grocery tenants. Residents argued last summer that the tax breaks had been contingent on a grocer; Develop Fulton and the developers have maintained that was never a condition.
Northwood Ravin told Urbanize Atlanta in February, as groundbreaking approached, that it was preparing to market the commercial space for both ground-level retail and micro-retail tenants. No signings have been announced yet.
Construction had originally been projected to start in fall 2025 before slipping. At last check, The Bowery is expected to open sometime in 2028.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published June 2026.