QTS Data Centers has filed plans with the state of Georgia and city of Atlanta to build a roughly 1.5-million-square-foot project in Atlanta’s Westside with hundreds of residential units. Named Project Granite, it would rise just north of the company’s existing 95-acre campus at 1033 Jefferson St.
The project is planned for a 36-acre site just south of the intersection of West Marietta and Herndon Streets and on the west side of the planned Atlanta BeltLine Trail extension.
A submission with the state’s Department of Community Affairs outlines plans for a 1.15 million-square-foot data center, 640,000 square feet of office space, 70,000 square feet of retail, and 450 units, but filings this month with the city call for 900,000 square feet of data center space, 250,000 square feet of data center offices, 40,000 square feet of office, 70,000 square feet of retail, and 400 units.
A spokesperson for QTS Data Centers said the company would decline to comment at this time.
Plans with the city show that QTS intends to build 350 for-rent units in a mixed-use building southeast of the intersection of West Marietta and Herndon Streets and 50 townhomes down the eastern side of Herndon Street. To the northeast would be a mixed-use office and retail building, while the southern portion of the project would hold two data center buildings along with offices.
The site has held the former WestRock packaging facility and was acquired by West Midtown Acquisition Company LLC, a subsidiary of Kansas-based QTS, in 2018 for $80 million.
Plans show that 35 of the project’s for-rent units would be reserved for households at 60 percent of area median income or below. Projected below-market-rate rents for the units are shown as $750 for studios, $960 for one-bedrooms, and $1,800 for two- and three-bedroom units.
The total unit mix is 118 studios, 117 one-bedrooms, and 115 twos and threes, with expected market rents of $1,250, $1,600, and $3,000.
The project’s for-sale component would feature 25 three-bedrooms with an expected average sales price of $425,000 and 25 four-bedrooms with an expected average sales price of $525,000.
Access to the development would be provided from both West Marietta Street and Herndon Street, with pedestrian connections to the BeltLine Trail provided by multiple locations within the site.
The project was presented in January to the city’s Concept Review Committee by QTS Development Program Manager Sarah Blue, Jeff Williams of architecture firm Perkins+Will, and a project attorney, according to a log from the meeting. Project representatives said a pedestrian connection going through Church Street to the BeltLine is also part of the plan.
QTS’s Westside Atlanta plans were first reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
