The owner of Underground Atlanta is converting part of a former bank tower into housing, with projected rents of $1,100 to $1,400.
A dark-glass tower rises over Peachtree and Marietta streets. Its lobby was built for a bank that left, and from the sidewalk, it is easy to assume nothing has happened inside for years.
During a Sept. 3 tour of an upper floor, aluminum framing was already standing where apartments, hallways and a common area are supposed to go.
Not a rendering. Studs.
Owner Shaneel Lalani plans to convert 20 floors at 34 Peachtree St. into 300 apartments. Phase one covers 10 floors and 150 units, with completion projected for summer 2027. Phase two would add another 150 apartments, but it has no announced date.
The number renters should write down
The proposed mix runs from studios to three-bedrooms, measuring approximately 500 to 1,000 square feet. Lalani projects rents between $1,100 and $1,400 a month.
If that range holds, it would stand out in a newly converted downtown building within walking distance of Five Points MARTA station. The inclusion of three-bedroom apartments is also worth watching because new family-sized units are less common downtown.
But this is not a leasing sheet. Applications are not open, and the owner has not said which floor plans would rent for $1,100 or $1,400.
The apartments would sit between five lower floors of retail and offices and five upper office floors. Nearby is Underground Atlanta, which Lalani Ventures also owns. Farther up Peachtree, Sweet Georgia’s Juke Joint is the kind of existing business that could gain regular customers from hundreds of nearby residents.
Event crowds leave. Residents need meals, groceries, coffee and services throughout the week.
Why this conversion is moving
Lalani describes the project as self-funded. In July, he said demolition was complete and framing had started. He put the cost in the tens of millions but called it a moving target.
No construction lender, public incentive agreement or complete financing structure has been announced. “Self-funded” is the developer’s description, but it helps explain why work has started while other downtown conversions remain stalled.
Two blocks north, Georgia-Pacific discontinued plans to build roughly 400 apartments inside its headquarters. More than 130 would have been priced for households earning between 50 and 80 percent of area median income. The company said construction costs and market conditions made the project financially unworkable.
At 85 Peachtree, the historic Bass Dry Goods Building reached the market as 26 loft apartments without dedicated parking.
Twenty-six apartments made it to leasing. Four hundred were cancelled. At 34 Peachtree, 150 are taking shape and another 150 remain proposed.
The plan has changed before
Lalani Ventures bought the building for $12.75 million in cash in 2021.
By August 2023, the plan called for about 200 apartments, 2,700 square feet of street-level retail and 45,000 square feet of offices. Lalani hoped to open the apartments by the 2026 World Cup.
In May 2025, he was still seeking tax credits or other support from Invest Atlanta. The latest plan calls for 300 apartments across two phases, with Lalani now saying he is financing the work himself.
What changed between seeking public support and beginning construction has not been fully explained. Neither has the increase from approximately 200 apartments to 300.
I have watched enough downtown announcements to know that a press release is free and construction is not. Framing already standing puts this project ahead of most proposals. Now the physical promises are the ones that matter: 150 apartments opening by summer 2027, three-bedroom units surviving through lease-up, the $1,100 rent appearing on an actual listing and phase two receiving a date. If those things happen, Lalani will have completed something a major corporate owner two blocks away decided it could not. Until then, 150 apartments are under construction. The other 150 remain half of a promise.
