More luxury condos could rise over Piedmont Park

A Florida developer is planning its fourth luxury condo project in Atlanta — this time targeting Midtown and its trophy park.

Kolter Urban this month acquired property along 14th Street, a short stroll from Piedmont Park, where it envisions a condo tower rising about 20 stories.

Since entering Atlanta in late 2019, Kolter Urban has cornered the city’s luxury condo market, building two towers in Buckhead that are basically sold out, with a third on the way next to the ritzy St. Regis Atlanta hotel.

This would be the developer’s first foray into Midtown, where the skyline has been reshaped by new apartment and student housing towers in recent years.

New condo development has been sparse since the Great Recession, when well-known condo lender Corus Bank collapsed, and several Atlanta projects fell into foreclosure.

Developers and lenders burned by that experience largely exited the business, said Ladson Haddow, managing partner of Atlanta-based real estate consulting firm Haddow & Co.

“The development just evaporated,” he said.

Only a handful of Midtown condo projects have been realized since the housing crash.

The last new condo units delivered in fall 2021 as part of the 1105 West Peachtree mixed-use project anchored by Google, according to the Midtown Alliance.

“There are plenty of older condo offerings in the Midtown market, but we believe there is unsatisfied demand for a newer up-market offering,” Aaron Taulbee, regional president for Kolter Urban and a Georgia Tech grad, said in an email.

He expects demand from existing condo owners, apartment renters and homeowners in nearby neighborhoods who are “seeking to downsize or simplify their lives with a more lock-and-leave approach to homeownership,” he said.

An affiliate of Kolter Urban bought the 1.3-acre Midtown site for $11 million, according to property records. Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported the transaction, which closed Dec. 18. An affiliate of home builder Toll Brothers was the seller.

The entrance to Piedmont Park can be seen from the 14th Street propery that Kolter Urban plans to develop. (Abbey Cutrer/AJC)

Kolter Urban is considering between 80 and 110 condo units at the site, Taulbee said. Construction could start in the second quarter of 2027, he added in an interview. Taulbee said it was too early to share details on the condo prices.

Metro Atlanta’s condo market appears weak on paper. Home sales are down, and inventory has surged. In November, the available supply of condos grew to about 8.4 months, according to data from real estate brokerage Redfin.

But the numbers don’t necessarily reflect the potential demand for luxury condos in urban areas such as Midtown, Haddow said.

“There should be a market for the scale of development and the location that they’re talking about,” he said of Kolter Urban’s plans in Midtown.

Haddow later added that the developer has “a belief in the depth of the condo market that others aren’t willing to take a risk on.”

Graydon Buckhead, Kolter Urban’s first Atlanta tower, built in the throes of the pandemic, sold out. Units at the project averaged $2.7 million, according to Atlanta Business Chronicle.

The firm’s second tower, The Dillon Buckhead, has two units left to sell, Taulbee said.

Typically, developers secure a construction loan before they start vertical construction. But Kolter Urban starts building earlier, taking on more of the upfront risk, Taulbee said.

“I think on Dillon, we were fully topped out on the building, and the skin was maybe halfway up the building, before we received our construction loan,” he said in the interview.