A chunk of scaffolding meant to protect people walking down 14th Street between Peachtree and Juniper just collapsed, and suddenly the whole city is looking at what has become Midtown's most awkward open secret: after six years, the Campanile, a 21-story former office tower at 1155 Peachtree Street that developer John Dewberry has been trying to rebrand as The Midtowne, is still sitting frozen.
According to Urbanize Atlanta, the collapsed scaffolding was the pedestrian canopy running along the 14th Street sidewalk, across from Colony Square. City officials have labeled the site "abandoned" and "dangerous and unsafe." Yes, those are the actual words. A car is suspected of causing the collapse, and Dewberry's construction team has filed a police report to determine the exact cause. There were no injuries reported.
What you need to know about this building
Dewberry bought the Campanile in 2010 for $36 million and started gutting it around 2019. Construction stalled around 2020 and permits expired in October 2025. What remains is a concrete skeleton at one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in Midtown, steps from the High Museum of Art and MODA, with a construction crane that has been on-site since 2022. Council member Matt Westmoreland called it "neglected and clearly unsafe" in a public statement following the collapse. Dewberry has maintained the site is safe and monitored, and that the city's citations are politically motivated. Which is an interesting response given that Dewberry construction has also been under-fire for their "luxury" construction project in Charlottesville, Virginia.
How far has the city gone already?
Further than the draft suggests. In June 2026, Atlanta City Council made the Campanile the first property targeted under a 2024 blight tax ordinance, which allows a 25x property tax increase for neglected sites. That followed months of permit violations, resident complaints, and a Change.org petition that has gathered more than 3,270 signatures. The city's "dangerous and unsafe" warning signs went up in May and scaffolding fell this month. The sequence matters for understanding how much pressure was already in the system before Sunday.
What happens next
The pressure is squarely on Dewberry to act. The blight tax designation and "dangerous and unsafe" labeling are not just paperwork, they open the door to enforcement. Whether that means required repairs, forced stabilization of the crane, or something bigger is the part everyone is watching.
Six years of "we'll get to it" just ended the moment that scaffolding hit the sidewalk. This block is too visible, too walked, and too central to keep waiting on good intentions. The city has now said the quiet part out loud, and that changes the leverage. Whoever owns this parcel is going to have to move, or someone is going to move them. Midtown does not have room for a permanent monument to a stalled project, and honestly, we shouldn't want one.
