First new housing rises along finished BeltLine Southside Trail piece

Just west of the downtown Connector, the BeltLine’s Southside Trail is again proving its effectiveness as a magnet for new housing.

Described by developers RangeWater Real Estate as the first new market-rate apartments to be built in the Capitol View neighborhood in recent history, a 325-unit project called The Vivian is taking shape along the southwestern-most piece of the BeltLine loop.

As a recent site visit proved, the Vivian’s first building of three has largely been framed up, with its distinctive amenities area also beginning to take shape next door.

Having claimed the 8.5-acre site of a long-vacant car battery factory, next to both the BeltLine and Metropolitan Parkway, The Vivian continues RangeWater’s multifamily building spree along the Southside Trail corridor. Plans call for two BeltLine entry points.

Fifteen percent of the apartments will be priced at “attainable rents” to satisfy the city’s specifications for new BeltLine multifamily projects, per RangeWater. The company has said those will be reserved for renters earning 80 percent of the area median income.

Rents for those homes will start at $1,200 for studio apartments, RangeWater officials have said.

One and two-bedroom rentals will also be available in three buildings standing between three and five stories. Amenities near the BeltLine will include a pool, club room, fitness center, and dog park.

The Allene Avenue property operated for nearly four decades as Exide Technologies battery manufacturing plant before shuttering in 1988. The old industrial buildings were torn down last year.

For RangeWater (formerly Pollack Shores Real Estate Group), the project will mark the third major investment along the interim Southside Trail corridor, following a 319-unit complex near The Beacon in Chosewood Park called Skylark and the immense Maverick project in Peoplestown. ParkProperty Capital is an equity partner in the latest deal.

That activity joins a groundswell of new housing along the Southside Trail corridor—including other apartments, for-sale condos, and pricier single-family homes—as developers have rushed to capitalize on land deals before the area’s BeltLine segments are paved.

RangeWater reps have called the unpaved BeltLine’s “gritty personality” in the Southside Trail corridor a selling point. But The Vivian will debut to no such grit, as the first paved and landscaped BeltLine piece to branch off the Westside Trail—the Southside Trail’s .8-mile Segment 1—was finished a year ago at the property’s doorstep.

When announcing The Vivian project in August 2021, RangeWater officials expected the first apartments in Capitol View to be ready late this year; being that the first building’s roof has yet to be installed, that goal doesn’t seem possible now.

Trek up to the gallery for a look at where The Vivian project stands today—and where it’s headed.