A two-phase, mixed-use project aiming to preserve rather than erase Sweet Auburn's historic buildings got real financial and scheduling momentum in March 2024, when the Invest Atlanta Board approved a Housing Opportunity Bond of up to $3 million for Sweet Auburn Grande.
The project, led by Wisconsin-based affordable-housing developer Gorman and Company, targets the southwest and southeast corners where Auburn Avenue meets Jesse Hill Jr. Drive -- currently a dead zone of boarded-up historic buildings and surface parking. Revised phase-one plans call for 109 multifamily residences along Auburn Avenue at the southeast corner, with roughly 11,500 square feet of street-level commercial space; 57 of those units, more than half, are reserved for tenants earning 50 percent of the area median income or less.
Crucially, the project incorporates rather than demolishes the historic 229 Auburn building (the Atlanta Life Insurance Building), which dates to the early 1900s and once housed pioneering Black businesses, including Georgia's first state-chartered Black bank -- reversing earlier plans that had called for tearing it down. Gorman Southeast market president Joel Reed told Urbanize Atlanta phase one was on track to break ground in late July, cost roughly $56 million, and deliver apartments and retail by July 2026 following two years of construction.
Across the street, phase two calls for restoring two more historic structures -- the 1920 former Butler Street YMCA-JD Winston Branch and the Walden Building -- while adding a public greenspace at the base of the John Lewis HERO Mural, a corner the Butler Street Community Development Corporation rechristened "Good Trouble John Lewis Memorial Park" in 2022. Reed said phase two's financing was more complex, given its community-facing programming focus, with a possible late-2025 start pending a finalized capital stack. Total cost for both phases was estimated north of $74 million.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published March 2024.
