After years of renderings, permits and site work, the corner of Trinity Avenue and Shirley C. Franklin Boulevard finally has a building you can see from the steps of City Hall. Trinity Central Flats, the affordable housing project on the long-vacant lot at 104 Trinity Ave., has its first two stories of brick and precast facade up in one section, with a tower crane working overhead.
It's the latest chapter in a project downtownATL has followed from paperwork to concrete. The development team filed for building permits in 2024 (Trinity Central Flats Files for Permits Across From City Hall), infrastructure work was underway by January (Trinity Central Flats Is Finally Under Construction), and vertical construction began this summer (Needed downtown Atlanta housing begins vertical construction).
The numbers, updated. Contractor J.M. Wilkerson Construction Co. now puts the count at 219 apartments in a building stepping up to nine and 10 stories and topping out at 123 feet. Construction officially started in November, and completion is scheduled for February 2028, a few months later than the late-2027 opening cited earlier this year. Plans include 6,721 square feet of retail in three storefronts along Shirley C. Franklin Boulevard, which the city designates a storefront street, plus a new crosswalk leading straight to City Hall's front entrance.
Who it's for. Per Invest Atlanta, every unit will rent below market, capped for households earning 80 percent of area median income or less, and 193 apartments will be reserved at 50 or 60 percent AMI. Atlanta Housing HomeFlex vouchers will support the supportive-housing units, so no resident pays more than 30 percent of their income.
What's inside. The second floor serves as the main resident lobby, with a bike room with outside access, a computer lab, a job placement office, a gym, laundry and an arts and crafts room. A covered walkway will link residents to the Government Center Parking Deck to the south. Designs by SSOE Group top that deck with an 18,000-square-foot urban garden and call for the largest solar array on any multifamily building in Georgia, which officials expect to cut common-area energy use by about 30 percent.
The project is led by Radiant Development Partners and Capitol Hill Neighborhood Development Corporation, a ministry backed by three downtown congregations: Central Presbyterian, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and Trinity United Methodist. The team was selected in December 2021 to redevelop the sloping 1.3-acre site, which had sat fenced off for more than a decade.
More housing next door. Immediately east, Gorman & Company is preparing The Sanctuary, a $41.3 million, 15-story mixed-income tower on Trinity United Methodist Church's campus, which picked up an additional $1 million from Invest Atlanta's Eastside TAD Ascension Fund in May. Together the two projects put a meaningful block of new downtown homes within walking distance of three MARTA stations, Underground Atlanta and South Downtown.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta.
