Downtown “eyesore” Medical Arts Building moving closer to renovation

July 21,2017

Source: Leon Stafford, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

After sitting empty for decades and making Central Atlanta Progress’s “10 Downtown Eyesores” list twice, the forlorn Medical Arts Building in downtown Atlanta is finally on the cusp of getting some love.

Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, approved on Thursday $3 million in tax credits from the Eastside Tax Allocation District fund for renovation of the circa-1920s building.

Global X Properties, the Ohio-based owner of the building, wants to turn the Beaux-art tower’s 85,000 square feet of space into a Class A office building for community-oriented and non-profit tenants. Work on the rehabilitation work is scheduled to begin March 2018 and be completed by May the following year.

“I’m thrilled about the Medical Arts Building,” Mayor Kasim Reed said in an interview. “I think everybody in this town has looked at the Medical Arts Building and always known that it’s special. And if folks are like me, they have always wondered why it wasn’t used for something. So it is going to end up being a Class A office building."

The Medical Arts Building, which sits prominently along the downtown connector, was the only building to make CAP’s eyesore list in both 2003 and 2009. Several buildings on the 2003 list, such as the Glenn Hotel and Winecoff, now a hotel called The Ellis, were restored and removed as eyesores.