Developers converted apartments in a property that had been vacant for roughly 20 years on Atlanta’s Westside into affordable housing with the aim of giving residents a nice place to live. It also used a new design approach to achieve what developers are struggling with around the country: making an affordable housing project financially feasible.
Architect: Aleksei White.
General contractor: Alexander Goshen.
Brokers: Patty Brubaker with Keller Williams.
Developers and financiers: Tenth Street Ventures, ARRC Capital Partners, Alexander Goshen, American South Real Estate Fund, and the Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund.
Why it matters: The neighborhood near the Atlanta Westside Beltline Trail, part of a large trail network that runs through old railroad beds, has been dealing with crime and has had vacant buildings for years.
Onsite police: Renovating the vacant building at 1200 Mobile St. is a step toward providing affordable housing and reducing crime. The owners struck a deal with the Atlanta Police Department and have officers living in some of the units.
Going deeper: To make the project affordable, the developers gutted the building’s 20 units and created 40 micro-units. Richard Taylor with ARRC Capital Partners said they had the opportunity to take a property and test a new model with the micro-units.
What they're saying: Otherwise, "we wouldn’t have been able to make it affordable,” Taylor said.
How it fits in: The project's reconfiguration makes it part of the national conversation about ways to build financially feasible affordable housing projects. There's a shortage of this type of housing in cities across the country because it can be difficult for developers to turn a profit if rents are low, and the profit they achieve is often far lower than in high-end projects.
CoStar's Impact Awards highlight the commercial real estate transactions and projects that have transformed their markets over the past year. The winners are chosen by independent panels of industry professionals who work in the markets they judge. A list of judges can be found here and the criteria for selecting winners can be found here.