MARTA sets redevelopment sights on
westernmost train station 22 acres around
H.E. Holmes transit hub targeted for “diverse”
development, repurposing
Amid talk of MARTA’s tax-funded budget shortcomings for new transit options, and questions surrounding a planned $230-million, MARTA-led expansion of the Atlanta Streetcar system, the transit agency continues to move forward with efforts to convert underused property around stations into housing and other uses.
Next stop: H.E. Holmes station, a busy transit hub located five miles directly west of downtown.
H.E. Holmes station, also known as Hamilton E. Homes, is the last western stop on MARTA’s Blue Line. It’s one of five stations MARTA pinpointed last year—from Bankhead to Brookhaven and Stone Mountain—as being ripe for Transit-Oriented Development, or TODs.
The H.E. Holmes station and adjacent parking lots as seen from Harland Terrace in 2021.Google Maps
Opened in 1979, H.E. Holmes is one of MARTA’s oldest stations, offering both local and regional bus connections today. It also has more than 1,400 free parking spaces adjacent to rail platforms now.
MARTA is formulating a masterplan to redevelop 22 acres around the station into “a diverse mix of land uses to create new neighborhood centers,” per the transit agency.
As part of those efforts, MARTA is hosting two virtual, public meetings early next month to present possible plans and gather public input on how H.E. Holmes should be remade. MARTA’s design team is currently exploring different scenarios.
The first meeting will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on February 6 (register here), and the second from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. February 7 (register here .) The same information is expected to be presented at both.
Google Maps
H.E. Holmes station, in addition to being a regional transit center, “holds significance as a place with deep ties to Atlanta’s rich history,” MARTA officials noted this week, “and its heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. The station is named for Dr. Hamilton Earl Holmes, an Atlantan celebrated for desegregating the University of Georgia along with Charlayne Hunter-Gault.”
Redevelopment of H.E. Holmes station would join other MARTA-led projects from Grant Park to Edgewood and Decatur’s eastern fringes that have transformed parking lots into multifamily housing and other uses.
Article courtesy of Urbanize, published January 27, 2023.