Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on Monday issued a new executive order to maintain his ban on the redevelopment of the Atlanta Medical Center site.
Dickens is ordering the City Planning Department to refuse to accept new applications for rezonings, building permits or any other redevelopment actions for projects located within the AMC site.
Dickens issued a similar order in September, nearly a month after the Wellstar Health System announced plans to close the 460-bed hospital. That initial redevelopment ban at the 25-acre site was going to expire this month.
The mayor’s new executive order will stay in effect until the next City Council meeting, which is May 1. On Monday, City Councilwoman Marci Collier Overstreet introduced legislation to ratify and to extend the mayor’s ban for 180 days.
If Overstreet’s ordinance is approved at next month’s council meeting, it will extend the order until mid-October.
The AMC was one of Atlanta’s largest providers of care to the poor, so residents were shocked on Aug. 31, 2022, when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the news about its closure.
The Atlanta Medical Center is a 120-year-old institution located in the heart of the city on a 25-acre site. In 2008, the city designated the hospital as an essential infrastructure for the community’s Old Fourth Ward Master Plan.
According to the city, the land falls under several zoning regulations, such as the C-1 Community Business District, C-2 Commercial Service District, and the C-4 Central Area Commercial Residential District. Some of the properties also fall within the Beltline Overlay District and Beltline Affordable Workforce Housing District.
Dickens has previously said that Atlanta wants to prioritize the continued use of the site — in whole or in part — for health care services. The AMC housed the Atlanta Police Department’s Zone 6 Crime Suppression Precinct, so Dickens wants to maintain that public safety infrastructure at the site as well.
Natrice Miller
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