This tire recycle facility near the Beltline could soon become apartments
An Atlanta developer aims to deploy the three Rs of waste management — reduce, reuse and recycle — to remake a grungy industrial area near the Beltline.
Wood Partners on Tuesday detailed its plans to reduce operations of a West Midtown tire recycle facility, reuse the property and recycle it for new apartment development. The $75 million project aims to replace the industrial eyesore with 247 apartments, of which 15% will be reserved at rents below market rate.
To make it happen, the developer says something else must also be reduced: Its future property taxes.
Wood Partners said its project, called Alta West Midtown, is contingent upon receiving a $3.9 million tax break from the Development Authority of Fulton County. The board, which is also known as Develop Fulton, voted Tuesday to preliminarily approve the developer’s request.
Despite the Beltline transforming most places within its orbit, Wood Partners told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the incentive is needed to bring improvements to the surrounding area.
“Unfortunately, we would not be able to move forward here just because we have to have the affordability component here,” Blake Brady, vice president of development at Wood Partners, said during the meeting.
DAFC board member Alvin Kendall questioned whether the developer is asking taxpayers to subsidize the project’s affordability aspect, a requirement in Atlanta code.
Brady countered saying Wood Partners will preserve the affordability for 20 years, twice as long as city code requires, and the project is projected to generate more in future tax revenue than the value of the tax break. Kendall joined all board members except Mike Kennedy in voting to preliminarily approve the tax break request.
The project will also require about $300,000 in brownfield mitigation to clean up the remnants of the tire recycling operation. Brady said the developer will aim to recoup those costs through state or federal brownfield programs.
The site at 1593 Huber Street NW is within the Beltline’s Special Service District, an area that levies an additional property tax on apartments to finance trail construction. It is not inside the Beltline’s tax allocation district, an area known as a TAD where property tax revenue growth is allocated to pay for infrastructure within its boundaries.
The Beltline “hasn’t been approached for any incentives or support of this project,” a spokesperson said, adding that, “For those reasons, the Beltline doesn’t have a specific comment on this project.”
The site was part of a larger planned residential redevelopment project that was first unveiled last year but failed to launch.
Developers Columbia Ventures and Radco in January 2025 unveiled a plan called Huber West Midtown, which looked to transform a 9-acre stretch from 1575 to 1593 Huber Street into nearly 850 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space.
It’s unclear if the other portions of the Huber West Midtown project could still be developed. Radco declined to comment, and Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.
Wood Partners said it will reserve 38 of its 247 planned apartments at rents affordable to households at or below 80% of the area median income, which is $94,240 for a family of four. The apartment sizes vary from studios to three-bedroom units.
The $3.9 million in saved property taxes would be accumulated over a 10-year period. During that span, the project is expected to generate nearly $10.2 million in new taxes after accounting for the tax savings, according to the development authority.
Tuesday’s vote by DAFC was preliminary, meaning there will be a second vote to finalize the incentive. The authority’s board has rarely reversed course and denied a project’s tax break request after providing initial approval.
If approved, the developer’s land acquisition deal would close and construction would start later this year. Wood Partners projects it would be finished in 2028.