Changes coming in southeast Atlanta neighborhood

By Michelle E. Shaw

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Building affordable rental units, instead of single-family homes, might be the way to save some neighborhoods struggling with high foreclosure numbers.

Columbia Residential will test that theory as it begins to build 100 rental townhomes in southeast Atlanta in the Edgewood neighborhood.

Jim Grauley, Columbia Residential president, said the company is having success doing the same thing in Marietta. "I don’t know that we could build and sell single-family homes right now if we wanted to.”

This time next year, the corner of Hardee and Hutchinson streets, in southeast Atlanta, will look dramatically different, thanks to funds from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Grauley said.

The NSP is an effort through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to halt the slide of areas hit hard by foreclosure. It provides money to states, counties and cities to refurbish homes and then sell them. In 2009, during the first round of NSP funding, Georgia governments got $146 million, of which $16.2 million came to the city of Atlanta. Housing officials asked potential contractors to submit proposals. The first round of NSP funding preceded money authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Some changes in the Edgewood neighborhood will be evident as early as Tuesday when a number of Atlanta dignitaries, including Mayor Kasim Reed, take a tour and participate in a groundbreaking for the townhomes. Columbia Townhomes at Edgewood, as it will be called, is a continuation of the neighborhood redevelopment project, which started several years ago.

The location, the former home of Edgewood Apartments, is ideal, said the Rev. Toni Belin-Ingram, a board member of the area’s Whitefoord Community Program.

“It is close to schools, child care, churches, and there is good access to grocery stores and food programs,” said Belin-Ingram, who is also the pastor of Greater Smith Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Grauley said in this situation, rental worked better for the community and the economy.

“That is what people need and want," he said, "and you can still have the revitalization effect with rental units.”

Columbia Townhomes at Edgewood is part of a public-private partnership that includes groups and organizations such as the Zeist Foundation, the Mayson Avenue Cooperative, the state’s Department of Community Affairs and the Atlanta Housing Authority.