Across from the West End MARTA station sits a fenced, vacant production park. The question is what that much dead frontage is costing a corridor that otherwise works.
City Hall has spent two years deciding what can replace it.
In September 2024, Atlanta adopted Ordinance 24-O-1222, defining data centers and prohibiting them within 2,640 feet of a high-capacity transit stop.
The property at 713 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard falls inside that buffer.
What the pending amendment decides
This is not a choice between a data center and an approved housing project. No housing proposal has been filed for the property.
Ordinance 26-O-1097 would create an exception for qualifying sites in Subarea 9 of the SPI-21 Historic West End/Adair Park district. A site would need 10 to 16 acres north of Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. A data center would be capped at 350,000 square feet and 100 megawatts, use closed-loop cooling and devote at least 10 percent of its building area to restaurants or retail.
Digital Realty says the amendment “would apply only to this specific property.”
Passing it would not approve construction. No demolition schedule or building permit has been announced. It would remove the transit-spacing obstacle and allow the project to pursue its remaining approvals.
What Digital Realty is proposing
Digital Realty proposes purchasing the contaminated property and investing about $500 million in a two-story data center. It lists more than $20 million for remediation, 35,000 square feet of commercial space, an outdoor area, a new substation and no requested public funding.
It projects 200 to 300 construction jobs, 150 to 300 permanent data-center positions and 50 retail jobs. Those figures are company estimates, not guaranteed outcomes.
Planning staff recommends approving the amendment. NPU-V and the Zoning Review Board recommend denial. Residents and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund have argued that placing another data center in a predominantly Black community raises environmental and civil-rights concerns.
One company, two approval systems
Digital Realty is also advancing a much larger campus at the former Fort Gillem in Forest Park, outside Atlanta’s jurisdiction. The proposal covers 97 acres, about 1.9 million square feet, and an initial 212-megawatt load, with investment projected near $3 billion.
Forest Park is separately considering incentives and a community-benefits agreement for the campus, roughly 10 miles south of downtown.
How one parcel consumed two years
Councilmember Antonio Lewis introduced the first exception shortly after Atlanta adopted its transit rule. After neighborhood opposition, a petition, and a letter from Mayor Andre Dickens, the council unanimously shelved it in December 2024.
Lewis revived the effort in January 2026 with revised conditions. NPU-V voted against it 105 to 87 in April. The Zoning Review Board recommended denial in July, and the ordinance has repeatedly returned to or remained in the Zoning Committee. The committee held it again on Oct. 12.
Atlanta wrote a rule and is now deciding whether this parcel should be the exception.
The difficult part is not pretending the current property works. It is contaminated, vacant and contributing little to the street. Digital Realty is offering money to remediate it, storefronts facing the boulevard and jobs.
The question is the shape of the solution. An exception drawn around one parcel is not a citywide policy. If it passes, the enforceable conditions matter more than promises on a project page. Watch whether retail, remediation and any community-benefits agreement become binding requirements, and whether the next applicant arrives with a survey designed to match this precedent.
