Developer Preparing to Build 25-Story Atlanta Tower

Charlotte-based Crescent Communities is adding to Atlanta's development wave with a 25-story residential tower named Crescent Lenox that it is preparing build at 3387 Lenox Road, across from Lenox Square Mall.

The 352-unit glass and stucco tower will rise 385 feet tall between Oak Valley Road and Wright Avenue, on a piece of property that has been vacant for years.

The building’s primary resident entrance will be on Oak Valley Road; but the primary vehicle entrance and likely address will be on Wright Avenue, just a block from the Lenox MARTA rail station.

The apartment tower will have 56 studio apartments and the remainder will be one- and two-bedroom apartments. They will rent for $2-plus a square foot.

So far, Atlanta's apartment boom has been quite impressive, but not for the total number of projects.

It’s where the projects are clustering that’s unique — mostly within the in-town Atlanta neighborhoods or near MARTA stations in Sandy Springs and Dunwoody, Chamblee and Brookhaven.

In other words, more apartment developers are focusing on walkable areas close to transit.

It may be getting late in the multifamily cycle, but Atlanta developers continue rolling out plans for new apartments.

Last year, developers had begun construction on 1,799 new apartments units in Buckhead and Brookhaven.

Although more Atlanta projects are preparing to enter the construction phase, nationally the fundamentals that sustained the apartment surge may be weakening.

Construction outpaced net absorption of by more than 5,000 units during the third quarter.

Even without the tsunami of new supply hitting the market, vacancy is on the way up. This does not portend good things for the next couple of years as new completions increase and flood the market.