MARTA, partners close financing to move forward on TOD project

Place Properties and H.J. Russell Co., MARTA’s development partners for the King Memorial Station transit-oriented development (TOD), closed on financing to begin construction. With $6 million in grant funding from Invest Atlanta, the $62.5 million project is a collaboration that will create 100 affordable housing units of 300 total units and complement development efforts occurring along Memorial Drive and the surrounding historic community.

Located on approximately 4.4 acres of underutilized parking space on the south side of the station, the King Memorial TOD, which seeks to increase riders at a station with the second lowest ridership system-wide, is a part of MARTA’s broader TOD initiative. The development plan also includes ground floor retail and an arts project for the Grant Street Tunnel.

The station, just two stops from downtown Atlanta, is in the historic Grant Park neighborhood and due west of Oakland Cemetery. The station serves the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and Ebenezer Baptist Church. It is approximately three blocks south of the Atlanta Streetcar.

This marks the second multifamily development project financed this year on MARTA land with set asides for affordable housing. The Link development at Edgewood-Candler Park station was the first.