Two income-restricted apartment buildings are going up within sight of Atlanta City Hall right now, and a third is about to join them. Downtown and South Downtown are quietly turning into one of the busiest affordable housing corridors in the city.
We walked the block this past weekend to see where things actually stand. Trinity Central Flats at 104 Trinity Ave. SW is already climbing, 218 income-restricted apartments from Invest Atlanta, Radiant Development Partners and the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Development Corporation, with vertical construction underway since June. Across from City Hall at 265 Washington St. SW, The Sanctuary is still an active church and it doesn't appear that major construction has begun just yet.
Why Downtown keeps getting affordable housing announcements
Atlanta had built or had underway over 12,000 affordable units at the end of 2025, against Mayor Andre Dickens's goal of creating or preserving 20,000 by 2030. Housing leaders have told reporters metro Atlanta could need nearly 367,000 homes by 2035. Downtown has the land, the transit and the public financing tools, so this is where a lot of that math is getting worked out.
The developer showing up repeatedly in that math is Gorman & Company.
Gorman now has five Atlanta projects
Gorman's first Georgia project, the 60-apartment Residences at Westview, is fully leased. Hamilton Hills near the H.E. Holmes MARTA station adds 52 family apartments. Sweet Auburn Grande brings 109 apartments, 92 of them restricted to households at 30, 50 or 80 percent of area median income. Folio House, the restored Atlanta Constitution Building near Five Points, adds 46 apartments at 30 to 80 percent AMI in its next phase. The Sanctuary would add 83 more. Statewide, Gorman holds 12 Low Income Housing Tax Credit awards.
What a Gorman building actually looks like finished
Two weeks ago we got a private tour of Sweet Auburn Grande, about a mile from The Sanctuary. Here is the honest part: income-restricted usually carries an assumption about build quality, and that assumption did not survive the walkthrough. Some of the brickwork on the former Atlanta Life Insurance Building at 229 Auburn Ave. was preserved rather than skinned over, and the interiors were finished at a level that would not read as affordable housing to anyone touring it blind.
That matters for this project because The Sanctuary's plan leans on the same instinct. Gorman is holding 20 to 25 of Trinity's pews in storage for common areas. The stained glass, wooden ceiling beams and organ facade pipes stay in the design. The pulpit and part of the altar rail are set aside for the church's new worship space. Having seen what they did on Auburn Avenue, we expect that list to survive construction.
What is still unsettled
The 16-story, $41.3 million tower would replace the classroom and fellowship hall wing while keeping the original facade, with the historic sanctuary restored for ministry and community events. Trinity United Methodist Church issued a request for proposals in 2023 with help from Wesley CDC and signed with Gorman in 2024.
Two things prospective residents should know. Invest Atlanta's October update places all 83 apartments between 30 and 70 percent AMI, while Gorman's own project page says 30 to 80 percent, so wait for closing documents before judging eligibility against either range.
The real story on this block is not a grant. It is that a developer with a finished building a mile away, one we have walked through ourselves, is about to add 83 more income-restricted homes across the street from City Hall. Sweet Auburn Grande settled the quality question for us, and that is the question most people quietly have when they hear affordable housing is coming to their block. The Sanctuary is not rentable yet and nobody should treat it as a housing option today. But of everything in the Downtown pipeline, this is the one we will be watching closest, and we expect it to be worth the wait.
