On Thursday evening, October 29, the Atlanta Beltline holds a Southwest Study Group meeting in The Garden Club at Wild Heaven Brewery, 1010 White Street SW. The in-person session runs from 6:30 to 8 p.m. A virtual option runs from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The event listing promises two things: the latest on the Murphy Crossing redevelopment, and first concepts for a proposed MARTA infill station near the site.
The site is 1050 Murphy Avenue, a Beltline-owned property of more than 20 acres right on the Southwest Trail. The current master plan has 625 residential units. None of them are in the first phase, and that order is deliberate. If you're a buyer comparing Oakland City, Capitol View, Pittsburgh or Adair Park, it's the most useful thing to understand about the site.
Phase 1 Builds Everything Except Housing
The Beltline's Murphy Crossing project page lists what Phase 1 covers:
- Adaptive reuse of the Archives Building and the Curved Brick Building
- A 1.4-acre Stormwater Park
- Surface parking for the Archives Building
- Biglin Street improvements
- Sidewalk and path improvements
- Most of the demolition on the site
Housing isn't on that list. The Beltline's September 17, 2026 quarterly briefing lays out the schedule:
- Q3 2026: demolition contractor mobilization and permitting, and the start of design for the Phase 1 reuse buildings and stormwater park
- Q4 2026: demolition expected to start
- Q1 2027: demolition of existing structures completed, and Phase 1 horizontal improvements begin
- Q2 2027 and later: Phase 1 permitting, and vertical construction starts on the Phase 1 reuse buildings
As of that briefing, the Beltline had issued an invitation to bid for a demolition contractor. It had also filed lot consolidation and demolition permit applications, and it had conditional approval for vertical demolition. That conditional approval, granted July 16, 2026, covers vertical demolition only. Further review waits until redevelopment documents are submitted. The August deck put demolition at about five months from start. The published milestones run through Phase 1 permitting and reuse construction. They don't include picking a housing developer or a move-in date for any home.
Why the Order Looks Like This
The site has been on the Beltline's planning maps since the 2004 Emerald Necklace Study and the 2005 Redevelopment Plan. The agency bought it in 2018 as part of a strategy to own land near the corridor and push toward greater affordability. It acts as master planner and co-developer, and it says the project may end up with more than one co-development partner.
The last attempt to hand off housing ended in January 2025. That month the Beltline ended negotiations and its contract with Culdesac Inc. and its Atlanta partner, Urban Oasis Development. In the Beltline's account, as Urbanize Atlanta reported, the project's phase count grew during negotiations, and the proposed first phase went from 310 residential units to 105. The two sides have publicly disagreed about the termination, and AJC coverage carried the developers' side. For a buyer, the takeaway is about timing. Once housing depends on a private partner's financing and phasing, the schedule depends on that partner too.
The reset plan works in a different order. The Beltline has handled the slow, risky early steps itself. According to the rezoning ordinance and its conditions, the City Council rezoned the property from I-1-C to I-MIX on February 16, 2026, and the state's Development of Regional Impact review approved the plan with conditions in January 2026. Demolition, the stormwater park and street work come next. By the time a homebuilder is brought in, the site should be entitled, cleared and served by new infrastructure. That makes the deal easier to sign, but it pushes the homes later.
At a March public meeting, Andrea Foard, the Beltline's senior development manager, put it simply, as Urbanize Atlanta reported:
"With 20 acres, we're not going to develop this all at one time."
In that same coverage, Perkins&Will urban designer Ryan Snodgrass said the developers who build those pieces "will be hired as part of the next phase."
Where the Homes Sit in the Plan
The five-phase plan, as Urbanize described it in March 2026, starts with offices, retail facing the Beltline, and community space. For-sale housing and the reuse of a large central warehouse come in later phases. The high-density multifamily building and structured parking come last. Density steps down across the site, from taller buildings by the MARTA tracks to townhomes near existing houses.
Some details matter for anyone watching the housing:
| Plan element | What the documents show |
|---|---|
| Residential units | 625 total in the August 2026 deck; the block-by-block figures add to 627 |
| Non-residential space | 256K sq ft in August 2026; March figures were 82,000 commercial, 70,000 retail and 103,000 light industrial |
| Parking | 1,711 spaces, 786 of them for non-residential uses |
| Industrial requirement | Zoning conditions set aside 15% of floor area or 0.15 FAR for industrial uses, whichever is less, with occupancy thresholds tied to the overall buildout |
| Affordability terms for the current plan | Not yet published |
Older affordability numbers don't carry over to the current plan. In 2024, during the Culdesac deal, Urbanize reported a plan to reserve 30 percent of the rental units for households earning 60 to 80 percent of area median income for at least 30 years. Any affordable for-sale homes were to serve households earning up to 120 percent of AMI. Those terms went with the deal that ended. At an October 2025 meeting, community members asked for 20 percent or more affordable workforce units, alongside jobs, green space and room for local businesses. The current plan hasn't put a number on the table yet.
What This Means If You're Buying Within a Mile
There are two practical takeaways. First, don't count Murphy Crossing's homes as supply that will hit the market in the next few years. Second, don't count its amenities as nearby yet. The first finished pieces will be the stormwater park and two reused buildings. Even those follow demolition and Phase 1 permitting, which the Beltline puts in Q2 2027 or later.
The trail links that would tie the site to its neighbors run on a similar clock. The 1.31-mile Oakland + Murphy Connector Trail would run from the Southside Trail at Allene Avenue to Oakland City MARTA station. It reached 90% design in September 2026, with construction procurement expected in early spring 2027 and construction targeted to finish in mid-2028. Westside Trail Segment 6, between Lawton Street SW and Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard, is a sidewalk detour for now. Its permanent completion is tentatively set for spring 2028.
Permanently affordable homes already exist near the site. The Atlanta Land Trust inventory page, in a snapshot dated May 2026, lists these Oakland City townhomes as available:
| Address | Home | Listed price | AMI limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 960 Lawton St. SW | 3 bed / 2 bath | $250,000 | 80% |
| 962 Lawton St. SW | 1 bed / 1.5 bath | $165,000 | 80% |
| 958 Lawton St. SW | 1 bed / 1.5 bath | from $165,000 | 80% |
| 1091 Tucker Ave. SW | 2 bed / 2.5 bath | from $265,000 | 80% |
| 1095 Tucker Ave. SW | 3 bed / 3.5 bath | from $296,000 | 100% |
The trust's community land trust model keeps homes affordable for the next qualified buyer at resale. Its Oakland City projects include Avenue at Oakland City, with 36 townhomes, and Trust at Oakland City, a mixed-income project of 42 homes. Some of those homes may have sold since May, so check price, availability and income limits with the trust directly before you plan around any one home.
For scale, Atlanta REALTORS® reported a metro Atlanta median sale price of $416,000 for September 2026, with 4.9 months of supply and an average of 30 days on market. That's an 11-county figure, not a Murphy Avenue figure. Still, every land trust price in the table sits well under it, and those homes are already built. Murphy Crossing's for-sale townhomes don't have a developer, a price or an income band yet.
Questions Worth Bringing on October 29
The meeting covers redevelopment updates and the transit concept, so these questions fit the agenda:
- When does the Beltline expect to seek co-development partners for the residential phases, and which phase brings the first for-sale homes?
- What share of the 625 units will be for sale, and at what affordability levels and AMI bands?
- Will any affordability be permanent, or time-limited like the 30-year terms in the 2024 proposal?
- Has demolition started, and is the Q1 2027 target for finishing it still in place?
- The rezoning conditions refer to a "Proposed Murphy Crossing MARTA station." What would it take to move that infill station from concept to a funded project?
Answers to those questions will matter more for buyers than any rendering.
This post is general information about a public project and income-restricted homes. It isn't legal, tax or financial advice, so confirm program eligibility and loan terms with the program administrator and a qualified lender.
Lotteries, AMI limits and pre-sale timelines like these are everyday work for The Sly Team. If you want help comparing the land trust homes on the market now with what Murphy Crossing might offer later, we can walk you through eligibility and timing step by step. Get started with The Sly Team.
