March | 2026 | Travel Journal at Chadzilla.com

Ponce City Market is a mixed-use development next to the Beltline in the center of Atlanta. The Beltline is a 22-mile hike and bike path that circles Atlanta, and its construction over the last several years has led to an explosion in real estate development along its perimeter, including the development of Ponce City Market.

The Beltline closer to Ponce City Market

The original brick building of Ponce City Market was built in 1926 to be the southeast headquarters for Sears Roebuck and Company, and it was occupied by the company until 1987. At the time, it was the largest brick building east of the Mississippi River. It housed company offices, a retail store, and the catalog warehouse.

View of Ponce City Market from Ponce de Leon Avenue

View of Ponce City Market from the back side

You can still see the old Sears Roebuck sign on the front of the building

One of the original entrances to the Sears retail store in 1926

From 1990-2010, the City of Atlanta housed part of its city hall function here. When we moved to Atlanta in 2009, people talked about City Hall East, referring to this building. The City sold the building to Jamestown, a developer, in 2011. In about 2012, Jamestown began construction to turn the building into a mixed-use development with restaurants, retail, office space, and apartments, and the redevelopment opened in 2014.

A bird’s-eye view of Ponce City Market – the large brick building is the former Sears Roebuck building, and to the right you can see the new office building with the green roof and the Scout hotel behind it, the new Signal House apartment building isn’t shown here, but it is to the left of the brick building and sits on top of the concrete parking deck at the back corner of the property, the Beltline runs along the left side of the property

Chad and I were able to take a tour during construction, and we learned some interesting facts. One of the most interesting things is that, for the offices and apartments, you are able to drive your car up to your floor and park next to your office/apartment. During the Jamestown renovation of the property, the structural engineer didn’t have to fortify the upper floors to support the weight of the cars that would park there, because the floors were already designed to warehouse Sears catalogues. Can you imagine? As an architect, that little fact has stuck with me for 14 years, even though I haven’t seen it published anywhere.

The building is connected to the Beltline via a pedestrian bridge

There is a pedestrian entrance into the building from the Beltline

The pedestrian entrance has fun murals as it goes past the parking garage

The pedestrian entrance continues on a boardwalk over a vegetated roof

The adaptive reuse of the building from a warehouse-type of place to a modern mixed-use is pretty interesting. The ground floor and second floor contain a wonderful food hall and retail tenants. The upper eight or so floors are offices and apartments.

One of the old freight elevators is now locked in place at the ground floor and serves as one of the main entrances

A central atrium connects the two levels of the food hall

When the second floor was cut back to create the atrium opening, the orange beams were added to stabilize the floor slab and the concrete columns

Balcony seating on the second floor look down into the atrium

Decorative spiral stairs connect the two levels of the food hall

The fun murals and graphic design elements are carried throughout the development and used for signage as well as general decoration.

One of the stairs to the rooftop boardwalk that connects to the Beltline

One of the old freight elevators is still functioning, and it carries people up to the roof deck. The roof deck is open to the public, and it has an amusement park, a bar, and a great restaurant.

There are several boardwalk amusement park games

There’s a rooftop bar with great views across Atlanta

And there’s a giant slide – I’m the one in the middle

In addition to having this development as an amenity in central Atlanta (I can walk to it, by the way), I have also contributed to the design of Ponce City Market. Gensler designed the Jamestown office in the building, and I was the sustainability lead for that project ensuring that the best materials, energy efficiency, and human health aspects were included in the design through LEED.

The reception area of the Jamestown office

The conference room area in the Jamestown office

During my time at Integral Engineering, I was the project manager and sustainability lead for the next three buildings on the property – an apartment building, a hotel, and a retail/office building, all of which are LEED certified.

The high-rise apartment building called Signal House is right on the Beltline. The apartments are pretty pricey – $2,400 for a one-bedroom, $3,100-$3700 for a 2-bedroom, and $4,300 for a 3-bedroom. However, the building is in a prime location, and amenities include a pool on an upper deck, a rooftop community garden, fitness room, clubhouse lounge, and concierge services.

View of Signal House from the other side

The Scout hotel is interesting. It has regular hotel rooms, but it also has extended stay mini-apartments. It was quite the challenge to design these little apartments to feel luxurious while using minimal square footage. Like Signal House, the building has a rooftop pool and concierge service in addition to the regular hotel housekeeping services. The ground floor has retail spaces that can be leased and built out to be shops and/or restaurants.

The Scout hotel has short-term hotel rooms and extended-stay apartments

There are spaces for retail shops and restaurants on the ground level

The third building that I worked on, and probably the most interesting one, is the retail/office building. Pottery Barn has moved into the ground floor retail space, and there is office space for lease on the floors above.

The office building with Scout hotel in the background

There is a shaded courtyard between the hotel and the office building

The building is all wood structure (columns, beams, floors) which is common in Europe but is highly unusual in the United States. Wood construction has a much lower carbon footprint than steel and concrete, and one of the primary goals of the overall development is to reduce its carbon footprint.

The design of the Pottery Barn store leaves the wooden structure exposed to view

Here’s a rendering of office space above

Other design decisions to reduce carbon footprint across the development includes not having gas service on the site. This means that all of the apartment kitchens plus the future restaurant kitchens will be all-electric; there will not be gas stoves or gas water heaters. This is a fairly novel idea, especially for Georgia, and it was great to be part of the team that designed these cutting edge projects.