Fresh renderings: Quest’s community-focused Westside mixed-use hub is rising

As the forces of gentrification soldier on in Atlanta, it’s rare to see a mixed-use development that promises to do as much for the community as it does to the community.

But on the Westside, a good example of the former is on the rise.

Called the Quest Nonprofit Center for Change, the Cooper Carry-designed project is a 27,000-square-foot mixed-use build replete with coworking space and community services facilities.

The $10.2-million Vine City development would feature office space above 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, community space, and educational services at the junction of some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods—Bankhead, English Avenue, Washington Park, and Vine City.

It’s transforming a corner property where Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard meets Joseph E. Boone Boulevard, formerly a rundown, suburban-style shopping center.

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Slated for a March 2020 delivery, the QNCC is also expected to house a “newly designed, urban-modeled Family Dollar,” farmers market, financial services facility, and the new 8,000-square-foot home base of Quest Communities, the affordable housing-focused nonprofit anchoring the development.

Cooper Carry has designed the place to mesh with the industrial nature of neighborhing buildings on the Westside.

“The focal point of the pedestrian-friendly project is a street-level stoop with steps leading into the main building and activated with wood seating and raised landscaped planters for nearby residents to comfortably commune and connect,” according to a Cooper Carry press release.

The community-focused nature of the QNCC echoes the mission behind the under-construction Pittsburgh Yards, a 31-acre adaptive-reuse project that’s projected to produce some 1,000 jobs over 10 years.

Spearheaded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, as well as developers Core Ventures and Columbia Ventures—a leader in the affordable housing field—Pittsburgh Yards’s first phase will feature workspace for blue-collar tradespeople, an artisan wing with studios for sewing and jewelry-making, office space, an indoor amphitheater, a commercial kitchen, and a few residences priced at 60 percent of the area median income.