250 more residences are full speed ahead in booming Blandtown

Josh Green

Tue, 01/07/2025 – 12:33

The end of 2024 signaled new beginnings for large-scale development along Huff Road—and the continued influx of new housing in an Atlanta Beltline-connected neighborhood west of Midtown.

A former showroom for home improvement store PDI Kitchen, Bath, and Lighting has been demolished and infrastructure work is well underway for the city’s latest Novel-branded community in Blandtown.

The project by Charlotte-based Crescent Communities—an active Atlanta builder with multifamily projects dotted from Buckhead to Old Fourth Ward and the southside suburbs—is redeveloping a total of 3.03 acres at 1095 and 1121 Huff Road.

The site is located across the street from AuthenTEAK Furniture, X3 Sports, Anadol Rug Co., and other Blandtown businesses. The scope includes a vacant, triangular lot next door to the former showroom.

The project’s title, Novel Blandtown, echoes other Crescent ventures across the country and embraces the historic neighborhood’s atypical name.

Demolition progress and beginnings of infrastructure work at Novel Blandtown’s site in late December. Courtesy of Philip Clinch, @philip_atlanta

The proposal’s frontage along Huff Road, with parking lots for AuthenTEAK Furniture and other businesses shown across the street, at bottom.
Niles Bolton Associates

According to Crescent officials, Novel Blandtown is scheduled to open in early 2027, with Peachtree Corners-based construction company Fortune-Johnson on board to build it.

Novel Blandtown calls for a seven-story multifamily building with 250 units and a 4,700-square-foot, one-story structure for retail topped with a patio overlooking Huff Road, according to project designers Niles Bolton Associates architects.

Plans also call for roughly 330 parking spaces in a new garage and surface lots, plus about 50 spaces for bicycle parking, according to designs brought before the Beltline Design Review Committee in 2023.

As is, Huff Road includes two traffic lanes (and spotty sidewalks) for most of its length between Howell Mill Road and Marietta Boulevard, where it meets the Beltline corridor. But there’s hope for improvement on the horizon.

Rapid development along the Huff Road corridor is the driving force behind what’s called the Huff Road Multimodal Study.

That initiative is striving to eventually “reimagine [the] industrial freight corridor as an accessible, safe, and multimodal network, in line with the community’s goal of creating a restorative urban environment,” according to the Atlanta Regional Commission, which contributed $200,000 to the effort in 2023.

Proposed look of the stacked apartments, left, and retail component.
Niles Bolton Associates

Shown prior to recent demolition, the properties in question, at left, span about 3 acres collectively. Google Maps

To comply with the Beltline’s Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance, 10 percent of Novel Blandtown apartments will be reserved for tenants earning 60 percent of the area median income or less, per the Beltline DRC.

The newest section of the Beltline’s Westside Trail opened about two blocks away, directly west, in fall 2022. Now, a Northwest Trail segment of the Beltline linking toward Buckhead is under construction just to the north.

Crescent’s investment along Huff Road continues a surge of residential product for the historically industrial neighborhood over the past several years.

Neighboring residential projects that have claimed underused Blandtown parcels include Minerva Homes’ 34-unit Hayden Westside townhomes and Empire Communities’ sprawling Longreen project, which is consuming an area roughly equivalent to three city blocks along Huff Road.

Practically next door to the Novel Blandtown proposal, Crescent Communities also built a 340-apartment community called Novel West Midtown that opened in late 2023 on Fairmont Avenue. Ten percent of those apartments were also reserved as affordable housing, as Beltline inclusionary zoning rules in the area dictate.

Other Huff Road development sites include Empire Communities’ Longreen project, shown at right in 2022. Crescent’s new Novel West Midtown apartments are at top. Google Maps

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Images

Shown prior to recent demolition, the properties in question, at left, span about 3 acres collectively. Google Maps

Other Huff Road development sites include Empire Communities’ Longreen project, shown at right in 2022. Crescent’s new Novel West Midtown apartments are at top. Google Maps

Demolition progress and beginnings of infrastructure work at Novel Blandtown’s site in late December. Courtesy of Philip Clinch, @philip_atlanta

Proposed look of the stacked apartments, left, and retail component. Crescent Communities/submitted

The proposal’s frontage along Huff Road, with parking lots for AuthenTEAK Furniture and other businesses shown across the street, at bottom. Crescent Communities/submitted