Affordable high-rise near City Hall to provide housing for Atlanta employees

Future city of Atlanta employees could find themselves living just across the street from City Hall.

Officials celebrated the groundbreaking Monday for Trinity Central Flats, a $130 million mixed-use high-rise that will house 218 apartments on Trinity Avenue downtown.

Developers say the project targets workforce housing needs while also dedicating 20 units for people struggling with homelessness. The 10-story building features more than 6,000 feet of retail space on the ground level as part of a broader effort to bring more foot traffic to the neighborhood.

The average rent: $1,350, which includes utilities and parking.

“We expect city employees to be the tenants of this place,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said. “So folks can walk across the street and get to work on time — at a low cost.”

Throughout Dickens time in office, the city has poured resources toward revitalizing the downtown neighborhood. Other major public investments in the area include the 2 Peachtree building conversion, more than $120 million toward street repaving and the city’s first municipal grocery store, Azalea Fresh Market.

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No ICE in Atlanta

Several groups of skaters face freezing weather to gather along the Beltline under the slogan "Skaters against ICE and War" in February. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

The Atlanta City Council will debate legislation next week that would formally oppose any Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility warehouses within city limits.

Council member Kelsea Bond introduced the resolution that would also prohibit ICE from utilizing city resources like tax abatements, incentives or grants to establish detention centers. However, it could not stop the agency from purchasing privately owned land.

This comes as Georgia’s local and federal Democratic lawmakers are pushing back against expanded ICE operations in metro Atlanta.

Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock visited the massive warehouse in Social Circle, about an hour outside of Atlanta, that ICE plans to use as an immigrant detention facility. ICE has also completed the purchase of another warehouse in Hall County.

And ICE is already using the basement of the Atlanta field office to detain immigrants. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported that about 1,600 immigrants spent more than a day inside the field office from Aug. 1 through mid-October. It’s a facility that ICE policy says should hold detainees for no more than 12 hours.

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Inspector general will investigate $910K clerk contract

Atlanta City Council members confirmed Monday that the city’s top government watchdog is launching an investigation into $910,000 worth of payments made to the former clerk as part of a consulting contract related to the public safety training center referendum.

Former Atlanta Municipal Clerk Foris Webb III collected $910,000 from the city in 26 monthly installments of $35,000 each through an open-ended consulting contract. (City of Atlanta)

Former Clerk Foris Webb III was hired as a consultant in 2023 to “shepherd” the process of counting and verifying the validity of more than 100,000 signatures of registered voters, which were collected by opponents of the training center in an attempt to force a public vote on the project.

But the first-of-its-kind ballot initiative has been held up in court, and the signatures remain sealed in boxes inside City Hall. Still, Webb collected $910,000 from the city in 26 monthly installments of $35,000 each through an open-ended consulting contract.

The contract and payments were first revealed by the AJC through an open records request.

Council members previously suggested hiring independent outside legal counsel to conduct the investigation, but Council member Alex Wan told colleagues Monday at the Committee on Council that he has spoken with interim Inspector General LaDawn Blackett, who gave a six-month timeline for a full investigation.

“The inspector general shared with me that they had already received four different inquiries about this particular matter,” he said. “And so, that office has already launched an investigation into this.”

Council member Eshé Collins, chair of the committee, also requested the city’s law department look into the contract and present its findings to the committee within 90 days.