The Whitehall Street Retail Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on August 6, 2020. The nomination was sponsored by property owner, NEWPORT US RE, L.P., and nomination materials were prepared by Ray, Ellis and LaBrie Consulting, LLC.
The Whitehall Street Retail Historic District is centered on Peachtree Street SW (formerly Whitehall Street) and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive SW (formerly Hunter Street), is the intact core of a larger historic commercial urban area in downtown Atlanta (Fulton County). When the tracks of the Georgia, Macon and Western and the Western and Atlantic railroads reached what was to become Atlanta in the 1840s, they formed the nucleus around which the rest of the city would be developed. Whitehall Street quickly became the primary commercial corridor for the city, fueling a local building boom that put the district at the forefront of commerce beginning in the mid-19th century. The district is characterized by the late-19th and early-20th century single and multiple retail and office buildings that line its streets.
The Whitehall Street Retail Historic District is significant under National Register Criterion A in the areas of commerce and community planning and development. It is also significant under Criterion C in the area of architecture, as it contains good examples of late-19th and early-20th century commercial building types and architectural styles, and as an example of a retail commercial district’s changes over time.
