Atlanta staff urges denial of 2,250-space airport parking facility on Cleveland Avenue

Atlanta planning staff recommends denying a proposed 2,250-space airport-parking facility on Cleveland Avenue SW, arguing that the project would steer a corridor planned for better transit and pedestrian access toward a single purpose: storing cars for airport travelers. The recommendation appears in an Oct. 8 report to the Zoning Review Board.

Chavez Properties Acquisitions, LLC seeks a special-use permit for a 21.284-acre site in Glenrose Heights, spanning Cleveland Avenue and Old Hapeville Road. Operating as Fast Park & Relax, the facility would provide parking and shuttles for passengers using Hartsfield-Jackson's domestic terminal. The proposal described in the report calls for round-the-clock operation and about 50 full- and part-time employees.

Staff frames its opposition partly around public investment. The report cites $5 million in Atlanta Department of Transportation capital projects underway and describes a broader MARTA project costing $15 million–$20 million, all aimed at making the area more walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly. The planned Cleveland–Metropolitan Avenue Arterial Rapid Transit service includes a proposed stop at Cleveland Avenue and Old Hapeville Road, with a connection through East Point station to the airport.

The parking operation would funnel clients, employees and emergency vehicles through one proposed driveway on Cleveland Avenue. Staff calls that access arrangement inadequate and not pedestrian-friendly, and raises safety concerns involving nearby apartments, libraries and two elementary schools with city Safe Routes to School plans. Its land-use objection reaches beyond the driveway: adopted neighborhood policies favor safe walking and cycling connections to transit and redevelopment that does not primarily generate vehicle traffic without pedestrian infrastructure.

The applicant proposes measures to shield neighboring properties, including landscaped buffers approximately 40–80 feet wide along the east and south sides and capped lights to limit light pollution. A rear parcel would remain undeveloped and fenced, according to the report. The assemblage currently includes a fast-food restaurant and a former Piggly Wiggly building used as a liquidation center.

The requested permit would have no fixed end date. Staff recommends denial because it considers the parking-only use inconsistent with the corridor's redevelopment goals—not simply because of how the lot would be screened. Case U-25-028, also written U-25-28 in the report, remains a permit request: the document establishes staff's recommendation, not a board vote or final rejection.