The master plan that went in front of English Avenue in March 2017 led with a grocery store. Food first, housing alongside it. The neighborhood association did the work to get the zoning for exactly that.
Nine years later, the grocery parcel is the one piece of the site with no date on it.
Everything else on those 12 acres has been moving. On August 27, Legacy at Herndon Square held its grand opening at 527 Herndon Square Avenue, with Pennrose, Atlanta Housing, the City of Atlanta, Hunt Companies and Oakwood Development Group as partners. Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta Housing President and CEO Terri M. Lee, Pennrose Regional Vice President Will Eckstein and Rev. Terry L. Hightower of Antioch Urban Ministries were among the listed speakers.
What actually opened, and who can live in it
Phase two is 201 apartments in one, two and three-bedroom layouts. Thirty are expected to be market-rate. The other 170 are Low Income Housing Tax Credit units reserved for households earning 30 to 80 percent of Area Median Income.
That is real inventory on a Northside Drive block, and a three-bedroom at 30 percent AMI is not a rounding error in a city where family-sized affordable units are the hardest thing to find.
One caveat travels with it. Some of those units require Project-Based Vouchers through Atlanta Housing's HomeFlex program, which means affordable here does not translate to open to anyone who fills out an application. If you are pointing a family toward this building, that distinction is the first question to ask the leasing office.
The building also carries an enclosed parking deck, a wellness clinic, a fitness center, a computer business and learning center, and an interior courtyard with greenspace and a covered picnic area. There is 10,000 square feet of commercial space that is designated for resident programming. Not storefronts.
Invest Atlanta approved $41.5 million in tax-exempt bond financing in 2023 to help develop the phase two apartments.
What is still coming and what has no date at all
Phase three is under construction: 178 more apartments, one to three bedrooms, with 151 renting at 30 to 80 percent AMI and 71 supported by HomeFlex vouchers. The builders anticipate completion in the second quarter of 2027. For neighbors, that is the practical read. Construction stays on this block for roughly another year.
The full scope calls for 379 multifamily units across two mid-rise buildings, the 97-unit senior building, 32 townhomes, and 30,000 square feet of retail fronting Northside Drive meant to bring a neighborhood grocery option with fresh food access to English Avenue.
The townhomes and commercial component have no announced timeline.
Why this has taken 16 years
Herndon Homes opened in 1941 as public housing for Black families. The complex originally contained 520 apartments, although later reporting often described it as a roughly 500-unit community.
Atlanta Housing demolished it in 2010 and promised a mixed-income replacement. The redevelopment then stalled for years.
In 2016, Atlanta Housing selected Hunt Development Group and Oakwood Development Group as partners. The 2017 master plan followed, placing affordable housing and a grocery store near the front of the proposal.
By 2019, the sequence had changed. Senior housing became the first phase, and an Atlanta Housing official acknowledged that “premature promises” had been made to the community.
Phase one broke ground in January 2020. At the ceremony, then-Atlanta Housing CEO Eugene Jones Jr. said former residents in good standing would have the first opportunity to return. I have not found a public report showing how many former Herndon Homes residents ultimately received apartments.
The 97-unit senior building opened in June 2021. Phase two broke ground in March 2024 and opened this August.
That brings the number of completed homes to 298. Another 178 are under construction. The townhomes and grocery store remain without dates.
Two hundred ninety-eight homes on land that sat empty for a decade is a genuine result, and 170 income-restricted apartments with three-bedroom layouts is the kind of thing this city says it wants and rarely finishes. What I keep coming back to is that the grocery store was the piece English Avenue itself fought for, and it is the main piece with no date attached after everything else found one. If you have a stake in this block, the number to ask about is not the unit count, it is whether the 30,000 square feet on Northside Drive has a tenant, a timeline, or a financing plan, and Atlanta Housing has answered harder questions than that in public before.
