Metro Atlanta places high hopes in the large-scale redevelopment of former industrial properties – Atlantic Steel in Midtown, GM in Doraville, Ford in Hapeville, Sears/City Hall East in the Historic Fourth Ward, and Atlanta’s Beltline railroads. We value these generational opportunities to create walkable urban places that bring new development, preserve local history and attract much-needed jobs. The redevelopment of Fort McPherson represents another tremendous opportunity, but carries with it different challenges based on its location.
In locations like Midtown and the Historic Fourth Ward, gutsy developers have focused on attracting a combination of residents, office tenants and supporting retail. While those developers take risks, they see the disposable incomes of nearby residents and visitors can support their investments from Day One. The vision for the Doraville plant redevelopment includes all of the above, starting with a film and television studio.
The Redevelopment Authority’s vision for Fort McPherson is no different. We seek to build a walkable urban community of commercial mixed-use development anchored by the new Tyler Perry Studios. But Fort Mac is in a community south of I-20 widely known to have suffered from redlining, mortgage fraud and predatory lending for years. The median household income here is just above the poverty line, and nearly a third of households within a three-mile radius earn less than $15,000 per year.
These make the area unattractive to most developers and their lenders. But Tyler Perry sees this area differently, and he seeks to invest over $100 million building a world-class film and television studio.
The prospect of a film studio leading the redevelopment of Fort McPherson has provoked some public anxiety, conjuring images of closed compounds within which economic opportunity is contained, rather than shared — understandably so, as the film-studio industry does not have a track record, locally or nationally, of spurring development in adjacent disadvantaged communities.
Here, too, Tyler Perry sees things differently. He has said to the Redevelopment Authority and community representatives that he will support new retail investment in the area to benefit the film studio and surrounding community. While this may sound good, is there an example our community can expect from a redevelopment driven by a film studio anchor?
Like Fort Mac, the former Ford plant redevelopment is south of I-20. It may be particularly instructive as we consider what’s possible at the former Army post. It is easy to see now Porsche’s logic of developing adjacent to our region’s most significant economic engine, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. But back in the throes of the Great Recession, when the developer undertook this project, it wasn’t as clear what would drive economic activity.
Porsche’s decision to buy and develop its headquarters on much of the site is eerily parallel to what’s happening at Fort McPherson.
Porsche has built a largely fenced-off compound — plus a user experience that will draw visitors from not just our region, but from around the world. There has been discussion over time about the balance of the property attracting office, retail and hospitality investment. But when Porsche said it was taking a leap to the south side of the city not known for corporate relocations, the idea other investment would follow wasn’t guaranteed. Today, the expectation is not only that we will see such investment on the balance of the site, but that this is just the beginning of the build-out of Atlanta’s Aerotropolis.
Fort McPherson’s Porsche is Tyler Perry Studios — including a visitors’ experience in the form of a film studio tour. The economic reality of the surrounding neighborhoods today simply will not support — and has not attracted — the office, residential and retail redevelopment other parts of the city and region are experiencing. But Tyler Perry Studios’ investment can be the catalytic boost so badly needed in that part of Atlanta precisely because of his stated support for new retail investment to benefit the film studio and surrounding community.
We are counting on Tyler Perry Studios following through on its stated intention to support adjacent businesses. We are banking on the film studio’s vision of supporting a 150-room hotel. We need those adjacent businesses and that hotel to attract office development. We need all that new economic activity to drive the creation of jobs. It also promises to create more revenue for improved government services in the area.
Our work in realizing this opportunity will require us to leverage the investment in the film studio, connect to nearby redevelopment inspired by the Atlanta Beltline, and tie in to the airport not so far away. It will demand we overcome perceptions of crime and neglect that may have touched but didn’t vex the sites in Doraville, Hapeville, Midtown or the Old Fourth Ward. Consider how long some of those sites sat undeveloped. Think about all you’ve heard about overcoming the challenges those sites had. And then think again whether we need to seize this opportunity.
Brian Hooker is executive director of the McPherson Implementing Local Redevelopment Authority.
About the Author
