Amsterdam Walk redevelopment seeks Atlanta incentives for new apartments
Atlanta’s economic development arm will soon consider whether to provide taxpayer support to the first phase of Amsterdam Walk’s redevelopment near Piedmont Park and the Beltline.
Invest Atlanta, which includes Mayor Andre Dickens as its board chair, will vote Thursday on an incentive package request by developer Portman Holdings that focuses on Amsterdam Walk’s first apartments. The request includes a nearly $15 million tax break to help cover the cost of preserving 39 of 539 apartments — about 7% of those units — at rents below market rate for 99 years, according to documents filed with Invest Atlanta.
The request thrusts Amsterdam Walk back into the spotlight after its rezoning process garnered controversy over the project’s density and scope, resulting in an 8-6 vote to approve by the Atlanta City Council in April 2025. Portman officials have argued the 11-acre site on prime real estate is a rare opportunity for a new Beltline node, while a grassroots opposition group said the redevelopment scope would only burden its surrounding neighborhoods.
Portman declined to comment ahead of Thursday’s meeting.
Portman first proposed its revamp of Amsterdam Walk in 2023, intending to raze the aging warehouses to build a more dense and vertical project centered on apartments. The plan has undergone multiple tweaks, including lowering the tallest building height from 17 stories to nine.
The property was zoned for dense commercial use, not residential, which is why Portman sought the rezoning to permit its apartment-dense plan. The prior zoning allowed for only 330 apartments but up to 750,000 square feet of commercial space, including office towers.
Neighborhood Planning Unit F, which includes the site’s surrounding neighborhoods of Morningside-Lenox Park and Virginia-Highland, voted 77% against endorsing the proposal last year. The project also received a recommendation to deny or no recommendation from other city boards intended to advise the council ahead of rezoning votes.
The rezoning allows for up to 1,100 apartments as part of nearly 1.2 million square feet of total development. Of the total apartments, Portman said at the time that between 220 and 240 will be reserved for affordable housing at below market rate in addition to reserving about 13% of the project’s retail spaces at a 30% discount for tenants.
The request of Invest Atlanta centers on the first apartment phase of 539 units, which Portman estimates is a $327 million project. Portman said the incentives help justify reserving 39 units for residents who make up to 80% of the area median income — $64,000 for an individual or $91,360 for a family of four.
Portman estimates that it will lose more than $225 million in potential rent over the 99 years it agreed to preserve those units’ rents below market rate.
Last September, Invest Atlanta granted $19.3 million in tax-exempt bond financing and a $2 million grant from the Beltline’s Tax Allocation District for 135 additional multifamily units as part of Amsterdam Walk’s first phase. Those units will be reserved for residents making between 50% and 80% of the area median income or less.
Charlie Kaften, one of the opposition movement’s organizers, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that the redevelopment plan includes too much density and too much car parking and will turn Monroe Drive into a parking lot. He said the affordability aspect also won’t dent Atlanta’s affordable housing shortage.
“It’s a pure money grab. … This is all about maximizing profit,” he said.
Mike Greene, Portman’s managing director of mixed-use, told the AJC last year that project opponents “held expectations for a dramatically lower-density outcome that, while well-intentioned, didn’t reflect the site’s legal reality.”
Despite the controversy leading up to the vote and Amsterdam Walk’s status as one of Atlanta’s largest redevelopment efforts, the project hasn’t generated much attention since the spring of 2025. The only substantive update was in May, when Portman filed a site plan with Atlanta’s Department of City Planning, which was reported by Urbanize Atlanta.
The filing detailed the project’s first phase, which includes replacing a majority, if not all, of the current Amsterdam Walk buildings with five new buildings, including two wrapped around parking garages. The plan also includes 11 pedestrian connections to the Beltline and more than 100 bicycle parking spaces. The second phase was not detailed in the filing but is slated to abut Highland Park Lane.
This week’s documents filed with Invest Atlanta don’t provide an update on the project’s construction timeline.
WHEN IS THE VOTE?
Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, will consider the incentive request for Portman Holdings’ first apartment building at Amsterdam Walk during its Thursday meeting, which begins at 9 a.m.
The meeting will take place at 133 Peachtree St. NE, suite 2240. There is no virtual option.