Atlanta Apartment Community Demolition Makes Way for Neighborhood Revival

By Georgiana Mihaila, Associate Editor

After receiving countless complaints from community members, the city of Atlanta decided to tear down an old and abandoned apartment property in Southwest Atlanta.

The Cornerstone Apartments—once a thriving multifamily community at the corner of Alison Ct. and Myrtle Drive—had become not only an eyesore, but also a source of many concerns for the community; in recent years, the abandoned building had only been housing illicit operations related to drugs or prostitution, and was a source of constant fear for people living in the neighborhood.

According to CBS Atlanta, the city did not follow regular procedures—that call for contacting the owner of the building first—but instead went straight to a judge to get an order to tear it down.

While no immediate plans have been drafted for the empty lot, many believe that the removal of the eyesore will lead to a revival of the neighborhood. Yet this is merely one of many abandoned and dilapidated apartment buildings around Atlanta that have been razed in the past year. A dozen buildings in the Essex Court Apartments on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the Wishing Well Apartments in southeast Atlanta and an abandoned apartment complex at 2020 Allison Court in southwest Atlanta met with a similar fate.

Generic image via Wikimedia Commons, author Michal Maňas