Crescent Nears Deal To Buy Baptist Church Land For Buckhead Mixed-Use
A Charlotte apartment developer is spearheading a mixed-use project next to a Wieuca Road Baptist church that includes plans for a new office building.
Crescent Communities applied for special administrative permits Jan. 9 with the city of Atlanta to develop a 300-unit apartment complex and a multistory office building at 3626 Peachtree Road, part of the Church at Wieuca campus.
The church’s lead pastor, Kevin Head, confirmed the nearly 2.5-acre parcel at the corner of Wieuca and Peachtree roads in Buckhead is under contract to Crescent but declined to disclose the pending purchase price.
“We have finalized the purchase and sale agreement with them,” Head said. “It’s a significant step for us as a church.”
According to SAP applications filed by engineering firm Kimley-Horn, Crescent is looking to build 300 apartments with a parking deck, plus an office building with 6,500 SF of commercial space and a parking deck.
Harvey Rudy, an Atlanta-area development vet and founder of HSR Development Services, is the development partner with Crescent, continuing his affiliation with the site that he first established while with Greenstone Properties. Rudy said Crescent is considering a 375K SF office building on the site.
Crescent Commercial Managing Director Sagar Rathie declined to comment further about the project.
“Crescent Communities is excited about our continued investment in Buckhead, and we look forward to sharing more details in the future,” Rathie said in an email.
This is the latest iteration of the redevelopment of the Church at Wieuca’s land. Greenstone previously partnered with the church in 2021 on redevelopment plans. Two years later, the firm announced it had partnered with Toll Brothers to build townhomes, 400 apartments, 500K SF of office space and 12K SF of retail space on the site, but the project ultimately failed to materialize.
Rudy was previously Greenstone’s development head, responsible for such projects as HD Supply’s 220K SF headquarters near The Battery in Cobb County and the 14th + Spring office tower in Midtown. Rudy continued to do planning for the Church at Wieuca when he formed his own firm in 2024.
Developers have scaled back to historically low levels of new office construction.
Portman Holdings delivered its 525K SF Ten Twenty Spring office building in Midtown in 2024, which snagged consulting firm EY as an anchor tenant last year. The only other office under construction in Atlanta is 1072 West Peachtree, the 60-story mixed-use skyscraper by Rockefeller that includes 224K SF of office space and is set to deliver this spring, according to a fourth-quarter CBRE office market report.
A recent upswing in Atlanta’s office fundamentals, especially among landlords that own the city’s collection of trophy towers, could be encouraging developers to consider planning for new office development once again, said Sara Barnes, Avison Young Southeast market intelligence manager.
“I have a feeling some developers are going to start considering it,” Barnes said.
Office tenants inked more than 7M SF in 2025, focused mainly on Class-A and trophy properties, according to a Q4 Avison Young report. In fact, nearly three-quarters of all new leasing activity in 2025 was among Class-A and trophy office properties as tenants vied for high-caliber office spaces amid back-to-office initiatives, according to Avison Young.
Metro Atlanta office landlords tallied negative net absorption of more than 475K SF last year, but trophy tower owners saw nearly 468K SF of positive absorption, demonstrating the growing bifurcation in the office market.
Still, Barnes said she doubts any developer will break ground on office in the next 12 months, especially as they must pencil in elevated construction costs. The average price to develop a new urban office building is around $750 per SF, up $200 from five years ago, according to data compiled by Avison Young senior associate Nick Steen.
Further interest rate cuts and further cooling of the trade wars, however, could help push construction pricing downward, but most developers will likely sit on the sidelines in the near term rather than risk building new office space, Barnes said.
“Spec development, I still think we have a little bit to go before we see that break ground,” she said.
