Studioplex Condominium Association  ·  Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta

Studioplexon Auburn

Historic roots. Creative spirit. Connected community.

Loft homes, studios, businesses and galleries — sharing one extraordinary 1905 landmark in the heart of the Old Fourth Ward.

Homeowner Login → Explore our story
Twice on the National Register Reinforced concrete, c.1905 Artist-community heritage
HISTORIC LOFT LIVING ATLANTA · C.1905 SP

Welcome home & welcome in

A neighborhood tucked inside a single building.

Studioplex on Auburn is a mixed-use community where people live, work and make things side by side. Behind the weathered brick and board-formed concrete you'll find loft homes, working studios, independent businesses and rotating galleries — all under the roof of a building that helped shape Atlanta more than a century ago.

We recently reclaimed our original name as a tribute to this remarkable street and the people who restored it. We think it matters to honor the past while living fully in the present — so come as a resident, a customer, an artist or a curious visitor. There's room for all of you here.

659 Auburn Avenue NE — a stone's throw from the Atlanta BeltLine.

A sunlit garden walkway running between the building's wings, framed by overgrown concrete beams and beds of flowers
The warehouse that became a community

Life at Studioplex

Built for the way we live now.

Loft character on the inside, a real community on the outside, and a landmark looked after with care. Here's what living here feels like.

Iconic Architecture

Soaring ceilings, original brick, exposed structure and historic warehouse windows.

Private Courtyards

Landscaped outdoor spaces made for gathering, relaxing and connecting.

Strong Community

A diverse group of neighbors who value respect, creativity and collaboration.

Walkable Location

Steps to the BeltLine, Krog Street Market, Ponce City Market and more.

Secure & Well Maintained

Professionally managed for peace of mind and long-term preservation.

Studioplex today

One building. Three ways to belong.

Our lofts open onto planted courtyards, our storefronts face a shared plaza, and touches of its artist-community past remain everywhere you look. Mixed-use isn't a slogan here — it's the floor plan.

Brick loft residences with balconies beneath flowering trees

Live

Light-filled loft homes with soaring ceilings, original concrete columns and courtyard views. A real neighborhood, from cherry-blossom spring to golden fall.

Concrete pergola courtyard at dusk with warmly lit studio windows and planters

Work

Studios and independent businesses share the ground floor and the plaza — makers, designers and small companies who wanted a workplace with a story.

Garden corridor lit gold at sunset, trumpet vine spilling over the beams

Visit

Wander the courtyards, take in the history and public art, take the historical tour, or just sit under the vines with a coffee. Everyone is welcome to explore.

The open concrete-beam skeleton of the old compress, seen from above, with new loft façades tucked beneath

Listed on the National Register — twice

One building,
two histories.

First as a marvel of 1905 cotton-industry engineering. Then as the cornerstone of Auburn Avenue's revival — a community of artists. Both stories still live in these walls.

Part one · King Cotton & the machine age

Built for cotton, ahead of its time.

You're standing on the site of the Atlantic / Southeastern Compress & Warehouse — a plant that helped push Atlanta to the center of the cotton trade. Georgia's climate grew the crop, the railroads carried it, and this building did the heavy lifting in between.

1905 · The compress arrives

What a compress did

Ginned cotton was baled into 500-pound bundles, then squeezed here to half their size so more could fit on rail cars and ships. Two older Atlanta presses — Bell Street and Peters Street — were dismantled and combined into one plant with more than double the capacity. Atlanta's share of the project alone was estimated around $250,000 — roughly $9.5 million in today's dollars, a serious civic investment at the time.

The old compress yard today: concrete posts, brick partitions and a preserved metal-clad door
The compress stood across the rail spur — right where the parking court is now.

c.1905 · Structural innovation

One of the first of its kind

Cotton can spontaneously combust, so the warehouse had to be fireproof. The answer was steel encased in reinforced concrete — thick enough to shrug off severe fires, and steady enough to absorb the pounding of heavy machinery. At the time these concrete buildings were still largely experimental, which makes this one of the earliest surviving examples anywhere.

Weathered concrete beams and a brick pier in a planted courtyard, original structure left exposed
Board-formed concrete and brick partitions, still doing their job 120 years on.

Twenty bays · Twenty-four doors

The fire doors

Inside, the space was divided into twenty sealed bays, each closed off by sliding metal-clad fire doors triggered to slam shut in extreme heat — so a fire could be trapped where it started. Twenty-four doors were made by Atlanta's Dowman/Dozier. In the restoration, nine were fixed permanently open and the rest rehomed across the building. Look for the original bay and section numbers still stamped on the concrete posts.

An original sliding metal-clad fire door preserved along a garden walkway
An original Dowman/Dozier fire door, kept in place along the corridor.
500 lbWeight of a raw cotton bale
120/hrBales compressed at full tilt
135 ftHeight of the water tower
100,000Gallons held for fire defense

1908 · Across the street

The Water Tower

Commissioned to protect the cotton, the tower rises 135 feet with a soft, lighthouse-like taper and a cistern holding 100,000 gallons — gravity-fed to the sprinklers when needed. Completed in 1908 for about $6,000, it's the oldest surviving water tower in Atlanta. Today artist Charmaine Minniefield's installation Cosmic Cypher Prayer Circle (2018) lives inside, honoring the Ring Shout and the history of Black resistance in this neighborhood.

The historic Studioplex water tower, a tall tapering concrete tower resembling a lighthouse, rising above the trees and homes of the Old Fourth Ward at golden hour
The 1908 tower still stands across the street — the oldest surviving water tower in Atlanta.

The press at work

Two thousand tons, kept in rhythm

At full force the press bore down with thousands of tons, squeezing bales to half their size — cotton that puffed back out afterward "like a big marshmallow." The crews were called spidermen, and the most important of them was the caller: a singer whose choreographed, blues-cadenced call kept every hand moving in time beside a machine powerful enough to be lethal. A Harper's Weekly writer once called the sound, heard on the night wind, impossible to describe and, once heard, never forgotten.

A quiet garden nook beside a preserved metal door, a bench tucked under the trees
The same corridors that once moved cotton now move neighbors and light.

Held honestly

We don't tell only the easy parts.

This ground carries hard history alongside the proud engineering. The plant was celebrated as a good investment in 1906 on the very night the Atlanta Race Massacre tore down Auburn Avenue. And the work was dangerous.

In memory of Felix Gordon

In January 1918, a young African American worker named Felix Gordon died on the job here, found within a bale of cotton after working too many hours without rest. Studioplex has no official ghost — but we do have a patron saint in Felix, whose memory we carry forward with respect.

Part two · A living landmark

Where industry met the garden.

Restoration left the bones exposed on purpose. Vines climb the old beams, trees rise between the columns, and preserved fire doors line walkways that were once loading corridors. Along the greenspace, the sawtooth shed rooflines and corrugated siding were rebuilt to echo their original shape — daylight monitors that once kept cotton cool now shelter a glass studio.

Trumpet vine in full orange bloom over the concrete pergola at sunset Teal bistro table and chairs beneath a leafy canopy in the courtyard A landscaped greenspace with a bench, clipped hedges and a winding path Warmly lit studio windows behind the concrete colonnade at dusk

The road back to life

Restored by a community, for a community.

Studioplex's second life began with the Historic District Development Corporation — founded in 1980 by Coretta Scott King and Christine King Farris to protect the neighborhood around Dr. King's birthplace. The HDDC still owns part of Studioplex today.

Learn more about the HDDC →

1992

A new direction for Auburn Avenue

Mtamanika Youngblood became executive director and began the process to revitalize historic Auburn Ave while maintaining the community's character, celebrating its history, and preventing the displacement of long-term residents.

1998

Eighteen months of careful work

The adaptive-reuse project was completed after eighteen months of meticulous restoration, opening as a city-subsidized artists community.

1999

The first artists move in

On November 1, Studioplex welcomed its first resident artists, chosen through a rigorous process led by an Arts Advisory Committee.

2000–2001

Recognized and protected

The building earned its National Register designation, and the MLK Historic District was expanded to include Studioplex — just as Mrs. King had envisioned.

2007 → today

A neighborhood of lofts

Studioplex became condominium lofts in 2007 — but it never shed its creative character. The artwork, the courtyards and the maker's-eye spirit of its artist-community years are still part of the place today.

Click to learn more about the artists who lived here →

On the lot · The Red Shack

Out front sits A Hard Day's Work Shack, the largest sculpture by acclaimed artist Beverly Buchanan — commissioned for the 1988 National Black Arts Festival, later restored, and rehomed here. In Buchanan's hands the humble shack becomes a metaphor for home, memory and the triumph of the human spirit. "I believe the entire world is descended from shacks," she once wrote.

Beverly Buchanan's sculpture A Hard Day's Work Shack, a small red corrugated-metal shack with a tin roof and yellow paint markings, on the Studioplex lawn with the building's sign in the background
A Hard Day's Work Shack, on the lawn at Studioplex.

The neighborhood

In the heart of the Old Fourth Ward.

Live where history meets culture, with everything you love just steps away. We're on one of the most storied streets in America — a block from Dr. King's birthplace at 501 Auburn and Ebenezer Baptist Church — and right on the line of the old Southern Railway that's now the BeltLine.

  • Atlanta BeltLine Eastside TrailRight at our doorstep — walk or bike the length of the city.
  • Krog Street Market & Ponce City MarketTwo of Atlanta's best food halls, minutes away.
  • Galleries, restaurants & city lifeA creative district that keeps the spirit of art on Auburn alive.
  • Historic Fourth Ward Park & green spaceRoom to breathe just beyond the courtyards.

659 Auburn Avenue NE · Atlanta, GA 30312

The Atlanta BeltLine trail in autumn, lined with fiery red and gold trees and an artist-collective gallery wall, the Studioplex water tower rising in the distance
The BeltLine in fall — our water tower on the horizon, gallery walls along the path.

Protected in perpetuity

This building is permanently protected.

Studioplex is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is safeguarded by a recorded historic preservation easement held by Easements Atlanta, Inc. The easement runs with the land — it binds every owner, now and in the future — so the building's historic character is preserved for good.

Learn more about our Easement →
National Register of Historic Places Perpetual preservation easement Easements Atlanta, Inc. MLK Historic District

Resources

Association documents & info.

Governing Documents

Declaration, bylaws & articles

Rules & Regulations

Community guidelines

Community Calendar

Meetings & events

Committees

Community involvement

Contact Information

Reach out to us