ATLANTA – Atlanta’s Fourth Ward may get some new neighbors. A developer wants to construct two apartment buildings in the area around North Angier Avenue and Rankin Street near the BeltLine.

New City Properties proposes two 20-story buildings that would house 780 units.

People who live in the area say it’s a good idea, as long as some of it is affordable.

“I’m in general for it,” said Harris Osserman, a fourth ward resident. “More people should live here. It could definitely support more development.”

The buildings would sit in Councilman Amir Farokhi’s Fourth Ward district.

“This is right on the BeltLine where we want to see density in more housing,” said Councilman Farokhi (Dist. 2). “The properties that will be developed are a vacant parking lot and an old industrial building. This is the perfect type of development for this area.”

Each building would contain three levels of underground parking, community spaces and retail. Farokhi says the developers would be required to make a certain number of apartments affordable. “That will require at least 10-percent of units to be affordable,” Farokhi said.

It’s one of the latest projects aimed at re-making downtown Atlanta and surrounding neighborhoods. Georgia-Pacific plans to convert the upper floors of its building on Peachtree Street into apartments. Developers launched a $5 billion plan to revamp the gulch. Another group is converting the old CNN Center into an office and retail complex.

Erin Kenney supports the proposal in her neighborhood as long as it doesn’t uproot and price out the people who live there.

“Affordable housing would be helpful,” Kenney said. “It would be nice if more people lived in the city, but I don’t think they should be super overcharged for it.”

The development is still in the proposal phase. It’s unclear how much it would cost. A city advisory panel is scheduled to review the proposal on Tuesday.

David Cross was walking home late one Friday night when he got a call with a job opportunity. The Roswell-born actor and comedian was being offered the role of Sy Grossman in the fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy, the Netflix smash hit about a family of quirky superhero siblings. There was just one problem.

“I wasn’t familiar with the show,” Cross says. “I knew of it as a cultural thing that people loved, and I’d heard great things. But I’d never watched an episode.”

He spent that weekend addressing the issue, binge-watching and falling in love with the show. That Monday morning, he flew to Toronto to join the ensemble. Cross was such a fan that, during filming, he asked the cast and crew not to reveal spoilers for scenes he wasn’t involved in. “I didn’t want to have the story ruined for me when I watched it,” he says. “I just made sure I knew what I needed to know. Because I was so excited to see the rest of it.”

When he wasn’t on set for The Umbrella Academy, Cross was on the road, touring his stand-up show Worst Daddy in the World. Did you miss it? Not to worry. Cross is so prolific that he’s already on to another tour: The End of the Beginning of the End comes to Atlanta on October 16.

Atlanta is where Cross’s love of comedy first blossomed. Years before he rose to fame with the screwball sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David, and as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, Cross was a student at the former Northside High School. He calls its specialist performance arts program, now defunct, “a lifesaver.” He’d spend his nights watching Monty Python and reading National Lampoon, then write his own skits for class.

When he was 17, he worked up the courage to make his debut onstage. “It was at The Punchline on Roswell Road,” Cross says. After that night, he was hooked. At 19, he left for Boston to attend Emerson College, and later honed his skills in that city’s burgeoning comedy scene. He now lives in Brooklyn with his daughter and wife, the actress Amber Tamblyn, though he visits family in Atlanta several times a year.

Since Arrested Development, Cross has stayed busy. He created, wrote, and starred in the show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, while popping up in Modern Family and the Kung Fu Panda franchise. In 2023, he succumbed to the urging of his manager and joined the herd of comedians hosting podcasts. He admits he’s “having a blast” hosting Senses Working Overtime with David Cross, which featured his Mr. Show collaborator Bob Odenkirk as the first guest.

Looking back at both Mr. Show and Arrested Development, Cross can’t help but feel proud, especially when he compares it to what’s on the air now. “Everything on television now feels familiar,” he says. “The writing, acting, pacing, and editing are all good. But they’re not great. It’s like there’s something missing. Like there’s no soul to it. But those two shows in particular—they were so new and risky.”

Cross continues to split his time between acting and stand-up, but there’s no doubting his true creative passion. “I could stop acting, directing, or producing and I’d miss it, but I need to do stand-up,” he says. “I just crave it. Sometimes I’ll think of an idea or joke and I can’t wait to work it out onstage.” Cross is showing no signs of slowing down: He will take The End of the Beginning of the End to 46 cities this fall, before his next special is released next year.

“Touring gets harder the older I get,” says Cross. “But I love it. I just don’t feel that way about any other thing I do.”

This article appears in our October 2024 issue.

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Officers are investigating a Sunday night homicide in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood.

An Atlanta police spokesperson said that officers received a call around 9:30 p.m. about a shooting at a party.

Officers then found a dead man in his 20s who has still not been identified.

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Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach is speaking with the shooter who says he won’t be charged, LIVE on Channel 2 Action News This Morning at 5:30 a.m.

A police spokesperson told Gehlbach that the homeowner shot and killed the man during a party, but no motive has been established.

The shooting happened blocks away from Center Parc Stadium which was formerly Turner Field.

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