A demolition permit application has been filed for nonprofit Trees Atlanta‘s new headquarters project in Oakland City, according to city of Atlanta records.
Plans entail demolishing a one-story, 23,000-square-foot warehouse at 825 Warner St. SW to make way for a two-story, approximately 22,000-square-foot headquarters. Along with a variety of green spaces, the project will include two new buildings: a one-story, 3,143-square-foot operations building and a 18,575-square-foot main building that will feature Trees Atlanta offices, classrooms, and rentable event space, among other elements.
The project is meant to help accommodate the growth of the nonprofit, which has the mission of protecting and improving Atlanta’s urban forest by planting, conserving, and educating. Its current headquarters is the Atlanta Kendeda Center in the Reynoldstown neighborhood.
Built in the 1930s, the site’s existing building was most recently occupied by The Bakery, an artists’ studio. Before then, the building was occupied by Moms Bakery from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.
In an early May community update meeting, Trees Atlanta said it was planning on a May or June demolition, a summer groundbreaking, and to finish construction in June of 2022. After demolition, the project team will do a remediation of the 3-acre acre area, which is a brownfield site.
Trees Atlanta purchased the site from Jacobar Properties LLC for $3 million in 2019, according to county property data.
The nonprofit’s plans also involve a 3,000 or 4,000-square-foot meadow on the eastern end of the site, a connector trail to the Atlanta BeltLine Westside Trail to the northeast, and for it to plant about 150 trees on the site, among other components. The project will provide 54 parking spaces and 22 bicycle spaces.
The project architect is Atlanta-based architecture and design firm Lord Aeck Sargent.
Trees Atlanta’s plans will take shape just southeast of Murphy Crossing, a 20-acre site at 1050 Murphy Ave. that Atlanta BeltLine Inc. is looking to have developed into a mixed-use affordable housing project.
Across Sylvan Road from both projects, Urban Realty Partners is planning a revised, 264-unit version of its project The Murphy at 1100 Murphy Ave.
