After years of discussion and planning on how to repurpose Atlanta’s Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, dignitaries broke ground Tuesday afternoon on the first phase of the center’s development.
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The $64M initial phase will include the construction of 148 one-bedroom affordable units for senior housing. Thirty units in the development have been set aside for those earning up to 50% of the area median income, with the rest reserved for seniors earning less than 60% AMI.
Future plans call for the 19-acre site to be developed into 1,500 mixed-income apartments with retail and office space, a hotel, a high school and a grocery store. The completed project will cost more than $300M, according to Atlanta Housing, the city's public housing authority.
The Phase I units are scheduled to deliver in Q3 2027, according to Atlanta Housing.
The housing authority is working with The Michaels Organization, Sophy Capital and Republic Properties Corp. on the project.
The capital stack for the project is complex, with many organizations providing funding or other benefits.
KeyBank Community Development Lending & Investment announced in November that it had provided nearly $73M in financing for this phase, including a $39.1M construction loan and $25.2M in Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity. KeyBank subsidiaries arranged an $8.5M Fannie Mae permanent loan and underwrote $30M of tax-exempt bonds.
Additionally, the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, in conjunction with Reinvestment Fund, provided a below-market interest second mortgage.
Additional funding came from a capital loan and rental assistance from Atlanta Housing, local and state tax credits, and soft funding from the city of Atlanta, the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and a Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati grant.
Atlanta Housing closed on the property some eight years ago for a reported $31M, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Plans for the redevelopment went through several iterations and developers in the subsequent years.
Not every part of the center will be torn down and redeveloped. In 2024, the city entered into an agreement with the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office to preserve the Performing Arts Center.
In his speech at the groundbreaking, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens reminisced about the civic center’s place in Atlanta’s cultural landscape, saying he saw OutKast share a stage with Lauryn Hill there. The center was also the site of his and countless other Atlanta residents' graduations, he said in a speech recorded by Atlanta News First.
“Now, it becomes part of the resurgence, a return of purpose for a place that has carried the story of an entire city,” Dickens said.
Rev. Angela Brown, executive director of the First African Community Development Corp., blessed the site in honor of the memory of the Black Atlanta neighborhood known as Buttermilk Bottom, ANF reported. Much of the historic neighborhood had been razed in 1967 for the civic center’s construction.
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