One of Sweet Auburn's most visible dead zones is weeks away from construction. The Invest Atlanta Board of Directors has approved a $28.3 million tax-exempt loan for the first phase of Sweet Auburn Grande, the two-phase project targeting the boarded-up buildings and surface lots at the corners where Auburn Avenue meets Jesse Hill Jr. Drive.
Phase one calls for 109 apartments along Auburn Avenue at the southeast corner of that intersection, with roughly 8,700 square feet of ground-floor commercial space — about 2,000 square feet less than earlier plans — plus structured parking. Ninety-two of the 109 units are reserved for residents earning 80 percent of the area median income or less.
That mix reflects a deliberate trade. Earlier plans had set aside 57 units at a deeper affordability threshold of 50 percent AMI. The revision produces far more income-restricted homes at a shallower level of subsidy, a common recalculation as construction costs and financing terms move.
Joel Reed, Southeast market president for lead developer Gorman & Company, told Urbanize Atlanta the refined phase one has received building permits and is ready to proceed. The Wisconsin-based firm, which specializes in affordable housing, expects to close on the property in October and begin construction in November, on a 23-month schedule that would open the roughly $56 million project in October 2026.
The most consequential change from earlier versions is what stays standing. Plans now incorporate rather than demolish 229 Auburn, the long-vacant 1908 Atlanta Life Insurance Building, which housed Atlanta State Savings Bank — the first Black-owned bank in the city and Georgia's first state-chartered Black bank — during the district's heyday, and more recently the Butler Street Community Development Corporation.
Phase two, across the street, calls for restoring two more historic structures: the 1920 former Butler Street YMCA-JD Winston Branch and the Walden Building. A public greenspace is planned for that corner, at the base of the John Lewis HERO Mural, turning one of the district's most photographed spots into something people can actually stand in.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published September 2024.
