ATLANTA — A European real estate company has purchased more than 50 buildings in a long-troubled section of downtown Atlanta.
They bought five properties just this month alone.
The company told Channel 2 Consumer investigator Justin Gray that it plans to make a dramatic change to a neighborhood known for empty parking lots and vacant buildings.
Newport Real Estate has purchased a large percentage of the property in what for years has been a struggling 10-block section of south downtown Atlanta.
“We’re at 53 buildings and about six acres of surface parking,” April Stammel of Newport Real Estate said about the properties.
The first phase of Newport’s vision is nearly a reality. They call it Hotel Row.
“So essentially Hotel Row, from our perspective, is complete,” Stammel said.
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The area used to be made up of a string of small hotels by the old city train station. Now their neighbor is Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Newport has lined up a series of small businesses including a pizza place and coffee shop preparing to move in.
Across the street, a full-block building is being renovated for office space and retail. Permitting is underway for the next section -- two apartment towers totally more than 6 hundred homes.
“Every 6 to 12 months (we’re) going into predevelopment on another substantial block,” Stammel said.
Newport hopes to transform the stretch of long-neglected, vacant buildings and surface parking lots into a live, work, and play district.
“You just want to bring life down here?” Gray asked Stammel.
“That’s all we want to do – life,” Stammel said.
Newport told Gray they plan on saving as many of the historic structures as they can and using the parking lots for new construction.
On the borders of the area are essentially two other giant development projects from other companies -- the Gulch on one side and Underground Atlanta on the other.
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