This used to be an Atlanta elementary school. It could become housing.
At a site tucked in an industrial corner of northwest Atlanta, generations of children received their early education at C.M. Pitts Elementary School.
It’s now in the liner notes of Atlanta public education history, joining an ever-growing roster of shuttered schools. Built as a Black school at the tail-end of segregation, it was demolished more than a decade ago, leaving just a grassy plot ripe for something new.
Atlanta Public Schools says that time has come, recently issuing a call for developers to envision a residential future for the roughly 9-acre site off Perry Boulevard. It’s a project aiming to further the city’s housing goals while adding to broad redevelopment efforts taking place in a northwest Atlanta corridor that’s historically centered on rail yards and large public housing projects.
“The former Pitts Elementary School served as part of the educational and community fabric of Northwest Atlanta,” CBRE, a real estate services firm hired to help support the redevelopment, said in a news release. “Its redevelopment represents an opportunity to return publicly owned land to productive use while addressing the growing need for affordable and attainable housing.”
Another project partner is the Atlanta Urban Development Corp., a nonprofit subsidiary of Atlanta Housing established in 2023 by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. It plays a role in delivering housing-related projects across the city, with Pitts Elementary’s redo now joining the list.
Other former school buildings and sites have also been evaluated for housing redevelopments. In September, a shuttered alternative high school in Roswell was advertised for development with a request for developers to envision it as a mixed-use project.
The former school at 2210 Perry Blvd. NW doesn’t have a well-documented history online, but newspaper archives show it was born amid the fight to desegregate schools in the 1950s.
It was built as a Black elementary school to serve the Perry Homes public housing project and its vicinity, according to coverage at the time from the AJC’s premerger predecessors — The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution — along with the Atlanta Daily World.
The school opened in 1957 and was named to honor longtime educator and nonprofit leader Clara Maxwell Pitts. It closed in 2003 along with nearby Mitchell Elementary School, both of which merged to form Bolton Academy.
The former Pitts property has remained under Atlanta Public Schools’ ownership, and the city issued a demolition permit for the vacant school buildings in 2012.
Perry Homes has since been redeveloped into the mixed-income West Highlands neighborhood. The area falls under the Perry-Bolton Tax Allocation District, an area known as a TAD, where property tax revenue growth is allocated to pay for infrastructure within its boundaries.
Atlanta Public Schools and the Atlanta Urban Development Corp. issued a request for qualifications seeking developer-submitted ideas for the site. The request is open-ended, leaving specifics over final residential unit counts and the site plan to prospective developers.
The primary guidance provided is that the development vision needs to focus on “a mixed-income residential community incorporating affordable and workforce rental housing alongside attainable homeownership opportunities,” according to the news release.
Submissions are also expected to incorporate community-serving elements, such as childcare, healthcare, neighborhood retail or some combination.
Developer submissions are due by Dec. 18, and CBRE will assist with oversight and selection. More information is available at PITTSOpportunity.com.