Transformation of Sweet Auburn corner officially breaks ground

Josh Green

Wed, 12/11/2024 – 10:25

A project years in the making that aims to bring vitality to one of Atlanta’s most richly historic streets is officially underway.

Officials with longtime Sweet Auburn pillars Butler Street Community Development Corporation, Wisconsin-based affordable housing developer Gorman & Company, and national commercial firm Red Rock Global hosted a groundbreaking Wednesday for Sweet Auburn Grande.

The mixed-use venture, per the development team, will usher in a “new era of affordable housing and community revitalization” in a historic, downtown-adjacent section of the city that’s suffered from disinvestment for generations but is showing signs of a comeback.

For phase one, Sweet Auburn Grande’s finalized plans call for building 109 multifamily residences along Auburn Avenue at the southeast corner of the Jesse Hill Jr. Drive intersection. Roughly 8,700 square feet of commercial space will be included at street level, along with structured parking.

That retail component will be “ideally positioned to serve [Sweet Auburn Grande] residents and the influx of foot traffic from Georgia State University students and visitors to nearby Martin Luther King Jr. historical sites,” as Gorman officials noted in a groundbreaking announcement.

Finalized plans call for 109 apartments, with 92 of them reserved for residents earning, at most, either 30, 50, or 80 percent of the area median income. Seventeen of the apartments will rent for market-rate.

“This project is about honoring our community’s history while building a brighter future,” Alfonza Marshall, Butler Street CDC’s board chair, said in a prepared statement.

The revised vision for Sweet Auburn Grande phase one, with the early 1900s office building preserved. Gorman & Company, via Invest Atlanta

State of the southeast corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive today, with the historic office building in question at center. Google Maps

Eventually, the two-phase Sweet Auburn Grande project calls for reviving corners on the southwest and southeast sides of where Auburn Avenue meets Jesse Hill Jr. Drive.

The corners in question are currently dead zones of boarded-up, historically significant buildings and surface parking lots.

With phase one, the schedule calls for 23 months of construction, which would put the roughly $56-million project’s opening in fall 2026, Gorman officials previously told Urbanize Atlanta. Invest Atlanta’s Board of Directors in September approved a $28.3 million tax exempt loan that green-lighted the property’s closing.

The initial phase will incorporate the historic but long-vacant 229 Auburn building (Atlanta Life Insurance Building). That structure once housed pioneering Black businesses during the district’s heyday, including Atlanta State Savings Bank, the first Black-owned bank in the city and Georgia’s first state-chartered Black bank.

The building was constructed in 1908 and more recently housed the Butler Street CDC.

Meanwhile, across the street, the Sweet Auburn Grande project’s second phase calls for restoring two more historic structures: the 1920 former Butler Street YMCA-JD Winston Branch and the Walden Building.

An attractive, functional public greenspace would also be added at the corner, at the base of the iconic, towering John Lewis HERO Mural.

Breakdown of two development phases on either side of Jesse Hill Jr. Drive. Gorman & Compay; via SR, 2023

Butler Street CDC, which owns the 219 Auburn Avenue property that’s currently a parking lot, rechristened that corner “Good Trouble John Lewis Memorial Park” in 2022.

Gorman officials have said development costs are expected to come in around $18 million for the second phase, but restoration work on the former YMCA building would have different funding sources. A timeline for construction has yet to emerge as complex financing deals are worked out; but Joel Reed, Gorman’s Southeast market president, has said a late-2025 start date for moving phase two forward is possible.

Gorman plans to oversee the Sweet Auburn project’s development, design, construction, and management. Butler Street CDC, meanwhile, will be on board to continue stewardship of Sweet Auburn’s historic assets, officials said this week.

Second-phase plans for a circular greenspace to activate the parking lot, to be called the Good Trouble John Lewis Memorial Park. Central Atlanta Progress/Invest Atlanta/SCAD

Elsewhere in Atlanta, Gorman has completed projects Hamilton Hills across the street from MARTA’s westernmost station and the Residences at Westview, a 60-unit affordable housing complex near Westview Cemetery.

The company is also behind a modern-style, proposed warehouse conversion and expansion that could see nearly 200 more rentals take shape next to MARTA’s West End transit hub.

…

Follow us on social media:

Twitter / Facebook/and now: Instagram

• Sweet Auburn news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)

Images

State of the southeast corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. Drive today, with the historic office building in question at center. Google Maps

The revised vision for Sweet Auburn Grande phase one, with the early 1900s office building preserved. Gorman & Company, via Invest Atlanta

Breakdown of two development phases on either side of Jesse Hill Jr. Drive. Gorman & Compay; via SR, 2023

State of the 1920 Butler Street YMCA today, once known as “Black city hall” for its importance in the community. Invest Atlanta

The current parking lot and building conditions at the corner of Jesse Hill Jr. Drive and Auburn Avenue, beneath the 65-foot Lewis mural. Google Maps

Second-phase plans for a circular greenspace to activate the parking lot, to be called the Good Trouble John Lewis Memorial Park. Central Atlanta Progress/Invest Atlanta/SCAD

Beside the greenspace, plans have called for outdoor workstations and free Wi-Fi. Central Atlanta Progress/Invest Atlanta/SCAD

Phase two calls for restoring the Walden Building, named for Austin Thomas Walden, a prominent Black Atlantan who had an office there until his death in the 1960s, per Atlanta History Center. Central Atlanta Progress/Invest Atlanta/SCAD