A year ago this month, the removal of a towering red crane over the Waldo's construction site in Old Fourth Ward alarmed neighbors who read it as a sign the project was dead. It had already been idle for more than a year at that point.
Development officials said at the time not to worry — the crane was coming down purely as a cost-saving measure while Waldo's went through redesigns, the site was not being abandoned, and the crane would be back up early the following year. That did not happen.
This week, Waldo's officials again sound optimistic, saying the retooled project will rev back up, and that in the meantime the construction blockades that have caused mobility headaches around the site are being removed.
One piece of the original plan does not appear to be coming back with it: the six-story office component was put on the back burner last year, a casualty of the same office-market conditions that have stalled or reshaped projects across downtown and its edges.
For neighbors, the removal of the blockades is the more immediate change. For the project, a second promised restart now carries the weight of the first one that did not arrive.
Source: Urbanize Atlanta, published October 2025.