New Dunwoody apartment plan emerges a decade after failed condo tower pitch

Centered around a unique office building and boutique hotel, a large development district near Dunwoody’s MARTA station and Perimeter Mall is missing something, according to its designers.

It needs people living there.

The Georgetown Co. and RocaPoint Partners recently filed a rezoning request to incorporate apartments into Campus 244, a 13-acre district along Perimeter Center Parkway overlooking I-285. The site already includes an office building that incorporates the prior headquarters of poultry company Gold Kist, a hotel under Marriott’s Element flag, two restaurants and a sea of parking lots.

This is a rendering of the mixed-use Campus 244 project in Dunwoody. (Courtesy of Georgetown Co./City of Dunwoody)

The developers say the property’s copious parking spaces would be better used housing people than cars while also supporting pedestrian-focused infrastructure, green spaces and better MARTA connectivity.

“The property is partly underutilized with surface parking,” Georgetown said in the application, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained this week. “The rezoning is necessary to allow the applicant to respond to market demand and develop these underutilized areas with economically viable uses, such as multifamily residential.”

This is the current landscape of the mixed-use Campus 244 project in Dunwoody. (Courtesy of Georgetown Co./City of Dunwoody)

This is a site map of the mixed-use Campus 244 project in Dunwoody. (Courtesy of Georgetown Co./City of Dunwoody)

Neither Georgetown nor RocaPoint responded to requests for comment.

It’s a full-circle moment for Campus 244, which was the focus of condo and apartment tower speculation in the 2010s. A prior development effort by Crown Holdings looked to build four towers, including two residential high-rises, on the site, but the plan was withdrawn after Dunwoody leaders indicated they wouldn’t support it.

Well-known developer Charlie Brown, who died earlier this month at 87 after a prolonged illness, was a consultant on the high-rise effort.

Built in 1975, the former Gold Kist headquarters sat empty for years after its heyday, becoming one of the area’s largest eyesores along I-285. Before the refresh, the building was better known as the cold backdrop in Netflix shows, including “Ozark.”

The former headquarters for Gold Kist previously sat vacant along Perimeter Center Parkway near Perimeter Mall. (J. Scott Trubey/AJC)

Georgetown and RocaPoint acquired the building and surrounding property in 2020. The following year, the developers obtained a $23 million tax break from the Dunwoody Development Authority to redevelop the former Gold Kist building, renovating the space while adding two new floors atop the aging structure.

Transportation Insight and its subsidiary, Nolan Transportation Group, in 2024 opened a new corporate headquarters in the building, which includes 500 employees.