If you’ve ever wondered what the cranes that have dotted Atlanta’s skyline for decades have accomplished, our analysis of 44 years’ worth of data (1980–2023)* shows the city now ranks 14th nationally in real estate development. Atlanta’s sheer amount of new commercial, industrial, and multifamily construction has vaulted the city into the ranks of real estate powerhouses like Dallas, Austin and Miami.

Here’s a look at what propelled Atlanta to the top of the real estate scene.

• As one of the Sunbelt’s biggest boomtowns, Atlanta’s housing market has been buoyed by strong demand, but new development still struggles to keep pace with rapid population and job growth.
  • Boasting an impressive 139,000 multifamily units in the last five decades — the 11th-most nationwide — Atlanta’s multifamily boom has dramatically reshaped its skyline.
  • Atlanta’s peak decade for multifamily construction came in the 2000s, when it ranked fifth nationwide, averaging 5,722 permits issued per year. Though the pace slowed in the 2010s, with an average of 3,662 permits annually, the post-pandemic recovery has reignited growth, bringing the average back up to 4,855 permits in the past decade.
  • Although Atlanta has been a leader in multifamily construction, single family housing hasn’t seen the same level of focus. Over the past five decades, the city has issued permits for just 29,000 single family homes.
• Atlanta’s massive office development over the past five decades (3rd nationwide) was fueled by steady economic growth and major corporate relocations. Since 1980, an impressive 109 million square feet of office space has been delivered. While many cities saw sharp declines in office construction, Atlanta defied the trend, boasting a remarkable 127% annual average increase over the last decade.

• Atlanta’s robust logistics and distribution sector has driven the addition of nearly 71 million square feet of industrial space over the past 50 years. In the last decade, the city has been delivering an average of over 1.6 million square feet annually — an astonishing 144% increase compared to the previous decade.
• Atlanta ranks 16th nationally for retail space built over the past decades. However, the rise of e-commerce and shifting consumer habits have significantly impacted the sector in the “digital decade,” with retail deliveries dropping to a five-decade low. In the 2020s, the average annual square footage of retail deliveries has fallen to just 291,000, marking a 45% decrease.
  
  
• Atlanta’s self storage sector saw an impressive surge in new construction. Over the past five decades, approximately 6.6 million square feet of storage space have been added to the local inventory at a consistent pace.

For a deeper dive into insights from five decades of data, you can access our full study here: https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/top-cities-for-real-estate-development-in-the-us-over-the-last-half-century/.

About our data: This report was compiled by StorageCafe’s research team using data from the U.S. Census along with insights from our sister research divisions, CommercialEdge and Yardi Matrix. The analysis covers real estate activity across six major sectors — single family, multifamily, industrial, office, retail and self storage — from 1980 to 2023, focusing on 108 cities within their limits.