Bowen Choice Neighborhood

The 74-acre Bowen Homes site is the core of Atlanta’s second Choice Neighborhood revitalization and a major catalyst in securing a brighter future for the West Hollowell Corridor. In a rapidly gentrifying part of Atlanta, it represents the last major opportunity for affordable housing development of any scale on the West Side. The site redevelopment plan is the centerpiece of a much larger effort led by Atlanta Housing over 2021-2022 to map out coordinated public investments to attract private development to stabilize the area, increase connectivity, enhance environmental stewardship, create economic opportunities, and ensure equitable development throughout this part of NPU-G.

The vision of the Bowen Choice Neighborhood Transformation Plan is Regeneration - transforming a historically neglected and environmentally stressed part of Atlanta into a vibrant community with first-class mixed-income housing, retail, green space, civic amenities, and high-performing schools, rooted in the personal experiences and stories of a place and its people. The initial six phases of housing will provide 756 rental units, with 75% of the total units affordable up to 120% AMI; the remainder of the site will include at least 1,244 units in a variety of types and densities. The master plan incorporates ground-floor amenities, a new central square and other green spaces, a linear stormwater park, new streets and trails to reconnect Bowen with the natural environment and adjacent neighborhoods, and features to mitigate the effects of climate change.

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Storytelling & Memory of Place

Bowen Homes Resident Storytelling Project

How to Participate in this Forum

If you are a former Bowen Homes resident, please share a special story with us! These could include historical or important events, places you would spend time with friends and family, stories about notable individuals who lived in Bowen Homes, and anything else you remember about the community! Some example questions you could answer are:

What would you say was a strength of Bowen Homes?
Is there something about Bowen Homes you would like to see the future development celebrate or preserve?
Are there any facts about Bowen Homes you would like to share, or misconceptions you would like corrected?
What was it like at Bowen Homes when you lived there?

Oral Storytelling

Do you prefer to talk with someone about your experiences? We will be running an oral storytelling project in Spring 2022. Please email us at bowenchoiceneighborhood@atlantahousing.org to sign-up.

You can also attend our in-person January Community Workshop to sign-up! We will contact you with some scheduling options then record our conversations by video, to assemble a Bowen Homes Storytelling collection.

What We've Heard So Far

At our October Return to Community event, we spoke with many former residents who told us about their experiences at Bowen Homes. Some frequent themes, shown in the map below, were:

Chivers Street is where people gathered the most often, with Walden Street being the secondary location for gathering.
The street names are really important to keep in the future redevelopment.
The building orientation with the courtyards made gathering with neighbors easy.
The 1980 daycare explosion is important to honor and memorialized in the redevelopment.
Residents loved the firefighters at Fire Station #38.