The Atlanta City Council Monday extended a city-imposed moratorium on the former Atlanta Medical Center property an additional 180 days. With the vote, it will be October 2023, one year after the hospital’s closure, until owner Wellstar Health System can do anything new with the property.

The City Council voted 14-0, with no discussion, to adopt the motion. .

The Atlanta City Council first voted to extend the mayor’s redevelopment ban an additional 180 days or six months in October of 2022, until April 2023. On Aug. 31, Wellstar Health System announced plans to close AMC by Nov. 1. The hospital site takes up nearly two city blocks.

City leaders have said that the moratorium gives leaders and the community time to address AMC’s sudden closure. With the ban, the City Planning department must refuse any applications for rezoning, building permits, land disturbances, special administrative permits, subdivisions, re-platting or lot consolidations for 15 parcels of land that are part of the AMC campus.

The land lies within several zoning regulations including, the C-1 Community Business District, C-2 Commercial Service District, C-4 Central Area Commercial Residential District and the Beltline Overlay District and Beltline Affordable Workforce Housing Districts. Mayor Dickens has said that he wants for the site, in whole or part, to be used for health care services.

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In this aerial image, heavy machinery is visible at the beginning of the demolition of the Atlanta Medical Center as the site begins to undergo transformation into a new project on Monday, June 30, 2025. The AMC served the surrounding communities for over a century. 
(Miguel Martinez/AJC)

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