Improvement District Marks 25 Years of Transformation
Unique Model for Cooperation Has Helped Drive Historic Growth in Midtown
03/06/2025
One of the most important catalysts to Midtown Atlanta’s incredible transformation has reached a major milestone. The Midtown Improvement District (MID), the self-taxing entity representing commercial property owners that invests in public improvements, celebrates its 25th anniversary this month.
Moving the Blueprint to Action
In the late 1990s, Midtown Alliance engaged the community in Blueprint Midtown, a forward-looking exercise to create a bold vision for what the then-disinvested area could become. Thousands of participants gave voice to how they thought Midtown should function and feel, from building design to transportation and more. The mandate was clear: community members wanted a walkable, mixed-use, urban place with qualities that still made it feel like a neighborhood.
The community vision was cast. But it’s hard to imagine how Midtown could ever have realized that vision without the financial levers afforded by the Midtown Improvement District. The MID is funded by Midtown commercial property owners through a special assessment paid on properties.
Putting Shovels in the Ground to Improve Streets, Sidewalks, Plazas and More
Midtown Alliance staff work under the direction of the MID and Midtown Alliance Boards as an implementation arm of the City. The MID doesn’t own a square inch of land, but the resources they bring together help improve the public right-of-way. And this working relationship has yielded many transformative public improvement projects that have reshaped Midtown. Here are a few:
Read more about these and scores of other improvements here.
Supplemental Public Safety and Operations Teams Augment City Resources
The MID also invested in hiring off-duty APD officers to spend extra time patrolling in Midtown, a program that began in 2000 and has operated continuously ever since. In 2015, the Midtown Blue program was expanded to add civilian public safety officers to address quality of life issues and build relationships with property managers and business owners. Between 1998 and 2024, violent crime in Midtown has declined -78% and property crime is down -68%.
On a parallel path, the Midtown Green program was expanded by the MID to perform maintenance and operations support, cleaning streets and sidewalks, reporting issues to the City and improving safety conditions on the ground by performing tasks like cutting back vegetation for better visibility.
MID’s Undeniable Financial Impact on Midtown’s Economy
To date, the MID has raised more than $170M for public right-of-way capital improvements. Improvement District revenues have quadrupled since the year the MID was formed, to roughly $12M in 2025. And all of this work on the ground has attracted unprecedented investment: since 2000, the district has seen some $22B worth of new development, all concentrated in a 1.2 square mile area.
In addition, nearly 30K jobs have been announced for Midtown by way of expansion or relocation. And the district’s residential population is approaching 30K people.
In 2025, the MID has programmed $21M of investment in a half-dozen major public improvement projects that are either under construction or breaking ground in the coming months. What’s more, 83% of those funds are leveraged from agency partners for which the MID provides matching grants to access public funding.
Read more about the MID’s and Midtown Alliance’s district-defining work in our new 2024 Progress Report.
