Little Five Points Project Notches First Hurdle

ATLANTA-The city’s Zoning Review Board has approved Sembler Co.’s planned 42-acre, 500-home, 800,000-sf retail/residential campus in Little Five Points, one of Intown’s oldest commercial, cultural and retail neighborhoods.

The next hurdle for the St. Petersburg, FL-based developer is getting a green light from city council’s zoning committee. At a three-hour public meeting, anti-development residents criticized Sembler’s previous neighborhood commercial/retail project on Ponce de Leon Avenue as too traffic-intense. Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. is the anchor on that project.

But pro-development forces convinced the Zoning Review Board Sembler’s project would create needed jobs for the predominantly African-American neighborhood in Edgewood.