Creating Connectivity for The Krog District

In 1987, Atlanta Stove Works closed its doors after almost 100 years of manufacturing cast iron stoves. Today, the award-winning Krog Street Market occupies the historic building, selling produce, goods, and prepared food, and includes world-renowned restaurants and retailers.

Asana Partners obtained the nearly six-acre site in 2018 and set out to maintain the market’s culinary excellence while bringing even more authentic dining and retail to the neighborhood. Taking an adaptive reuse approach to the remaining buildings and properties, Asana envisioned The Krog District, a dynamic destination offering an improved visitor experience and connectivity to Atlanta’s pedestrian BeltLine.

Redeveloping this historic site came with unique challenges. Asana’s design team, including Bohler, navigated historic buildings and existing sewer lines, while creating safer pedestrian connections to the Atlanta BeltLine across a busy Krog Street.

Avoiding a Historic Sewer Line

A five-foot, 100-year-old, brick sewer line is still in use and runs under the existing Krog Street Market and across the site. It had the potential to interfere with a portion of one of the new proposed buildings. To avoid disruption to the new building during future sewer line repairs, Bohler worked with project architect ASD|Sky to create a cantilevered corner of the building. The ground floor level corner was removed, but the building still supports second-, third-, and fourth-story office spaces. This unique design allows workers to access and maintain the sewer line without affecting the use of the new building.

Promoting Pedestrian Traffic

Bohler’s design incorporates direct access to the Atlanta BeltLine and other portions of the surrounding Krog District through a gateway pedestrian plaza and several pedestrian pathways between buildings. The design even includes a raised, table-top crosswalk across Krog Street to allow for safer pedestrian traffic through the site.

Bohler also collaborated with the architect and landscape architect to integrate a variety of pocket parks and pedestrian plazas throughout The Krog District, creating a sense of place and enhancing the visitor experience.

Conquering the COVID-19 Challenge

Initial plans for the redevelopment were submitted for review in February 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial changes in the City’s processes.  Bohler’s team swiftly transitioned to remote work and kept the project moving forward by:

• Quickly adapting to the City’s changes and continuously following up,
• Moving forward with designing other aspects of the project while the City was closed, and
• Utilizing new digital plan submissions as soon as they were implemented by the City.

Atlanta’s commercial real estate industry entered 2021 with excitement about the Krog District project and the positive impact it will have on the community. As a result, Asana began construction in June 2021, and is anticipating completion in the second half of 2022.

Creating a Destination

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 on the development community, Bohler’s team kept the project moving forward and minimized schedule delays. In collaboration with the project architect, Bohler’s creative solutions are helping Asana create an authentic destination in Atlanta. Adding multiple pedestrian access points to the BeltLine, The Krog District truly integrates the community and attracts shoppers from across the region.