Demolition began Thursday on a dilapidated and dangerous stretch of long-abandoned complexes that greeted visitors to Atlanta as they approached from the west on I-20.
The planned teardown of the nearly dozen buildings in the Essex Court Apartments, which are visible from the interstate and have become known as some of the most troublesome properties on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, is the latest example of Atlanta’s push to knock down vacant, blighted properties that can become nests of drug use, vagrancy and more serious crimes.
Ripped-out drywall, broken glass, graffiti, uncut grass and liquor bottles litter the block-long site. The apartments, built in 1961 and abandoned for about a decade, stand across the street from Westview Cemetery. City officials fear that the eyesore has deterred potential investors for years.
“It was a huge, major problem,” said Steven Lee, who runs a counseling center nearby and serves as president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Merchants Association. “We’re excited to see that first brick knocked out.”
Several people said they had been victimized by theft from people who prowled in the complex. Morehouse College senior Christian Bell said walking past the complex from the nearby MARTA station made him nervous.
“I can feel a little safer when I walk here,” Bell said Thursday as demolition equipment arrived.
Within the past year, Atlanta has demolished the Wishing Well Apartments in southeast Atlanta and an abandoned apartment complex at 2020 Allison Court in southwest Atlanta. In those cases, the city said the owners were not responsive to citations and did not help clean up the properties.
City officials say putting code enforcement under the purview of the Atlanta Police Department has helped give weight to its clean-up efforts. So has a new registry of vacant properties.
“I think you’ll see us moving faster and faster,” said Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed.
In beginning to tear down the Essex Court Apartments on Thursday, the city had the cooperation of local attorney and developer John Mansour, who had acquired the legal title in fits and starts over the last five years.
It was a tangled, tortuous process to get the legal right to demolish the structures. Reed said parts the complex were controlled by 20 different owners with 11 different banks involved.
“A long-time coming,” Mansour said of the demolition.
Thursday’s demolition, which would usually cost the city more than $200,000, is being paid for by Mansour and his team to make way for a new development. Mansour declined to discuss his plans in detail, but said the location could be put to several uses, including residential.
“I don’t know what we will have here. but I’m excited for what we won’t have here anymore,” said City Councilman C.T. Martin.
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