Present state and possible future of Quarry Yards, Atlanta’s latest big idea

In an effort to differentiate themselves, Atlanta developments and large-scale redevelopments have seen the implementation of a rooftop amusement park, a private pond for water sports, and doggie parks in the sky in recent years.

The latest big idea is a 70-foot outdoor climbing wall on the side of an office building.

It’s planned to be a functional exclamation point on the initial phase of Quarry Yards, an ambitious project that aims to reshape how Atlantans perceive a once heavily industrial part of town that’s shaping up to be an outdoors haven.

Within the past week, Urban Creek Partners has led Curbed Atlanta on a tour of the Grove Park property and released new details and renderings illustrating what Quarry Yards is planned to be, right off the bat.

Eventually, Quarry Yards could encompass about 70 acres on either side of the newly opened Proctor Creek Greenway, across from the Bankhead MARTA Station.

The Quarry Yards property upon entry near the Bankhead MARTA Station, sporting fresh branding across one building’s wall.

The mixed-use development’s first phase is expected to break ground now in the second quarter of 2019, covering 27 acres and costing roughly $400 million total, officials announced.

The first components are expected to be 50,000 square feet of loft offices and 32,000 square feet of retail, including the adaptive-reuse of two existing buildings, which stand now as the ruins of facilities used for asphalt equipment and other machinery.

A building that was recently filmed in an episode of *MacGuyver* stands near the entrance to phases 1-B and 2.

Broken-down trucks sit inside a building that will eventually become a food hall and open up into the first phase of the project.

Aiming to embrace nature—most notably, the new Proctor Creek Greenway that wends through the property and the massive Bellwood Quarry park planned next door—Urban Creek has teamed with REI for programming that includes cycling and photography classes, while dreaming up the towering climbing wall, in addition to a four-acre community green space.

“We have focused the design of Quarry Yards on nature, outdoor exploration, and recreation,” said Mark Teixeira, Urban Creek Partners cofounder and principal, and a former Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees star, whose interest in the area dates back to his playing days at nearby Georgia Tech.

“We’re also proud to adapt some of the current structures on the site to preserve history in the Grove Park neighborhood,” Teixeira added in a press release today.

Plans call for an outdoor patio to overlook the creek.

So many bay doors may make for a functional design in what could become a brewpub.

Part of the foundation has cracked and given way inside the building.

Teixeira and his co-developers at Urban Creek have been cobbling together properties for nearly a decade in the area. A rep told Curbed Atlanta earlier this year they now own about 90 percent of land required to make both Quarry Yards phases happen, with some outparcels still being assembled.

Project backers have said Quarry Yards could change how Atlantans experience this part of the city, like the under-construction Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry and the nearby Atlanta Beltline Westside Trail.

Zoning allows for upwards of 850 new residential units (renderings have indicated apartments) and a 300-room hotel, plus nearly 600,000 square feet of offices and a retail component.

Elsewhere, the look that’s planned for a combined 80,000 square feet of office and retail in the project’s first phase.

A path leading down to phase 1-B with a large warehouse called Building A.

Building A is a large green and yellow brick and siding structure that used to house repair facilities.

Empty bins that once held different sized bolts sit inside a tool and supply locker.

Building A opens into a large space that was once used to repair equipment.

Kudzu has overtaken roads and pathways that lead up the hillside to the site of phase two.

Footprints of vanished apartment buildings and sidewalks can still be seen in the ground atop Quarry Yard’s phase two.

The Midtown and downtown views from the highest point in Quarry Yards, the site of demolished apartments.

Reflections of some of the smaller buildings on the property can be seen in the creek.

The elevated boomerang of a bridge that’s a defining point of the new Proctor Creek Greenway.

In May, this initial stretch of the long-discussed Proctor Creek Greenway was officially unveiled for public use, marking the first project of its kind funded by Atlanta TSPLOST cash.

What’s open now stretches about three and 1⁄2 miles, but the greenway is expected to eventually link Maddox Park and the Beltline’s Westside Trail for seven miles out to the Chattahoochee River, with some 400 acres of green space alongside it.