New Jersey-based developer RBH Group has plans to build a 31-story, 445-unit teachers and seniors project at 98 Cone St. in Downtown Atlanta, according to the Urban Residential Finance Authority‘s Housing Committee meeting agenda this week.
Named Teachers Village-Seniors Village Atlanta, the project would include 229 units for teachers, 140 of which would be reserved for a mix of households with incomes at 60 percent and 80 percent of area median income, an Invest Atlanta fact sheet for the plan shows. The project’s other units will take the form of independent and assisted living residences marketed to seniors (those age 55 and up) in the area.
The proposal follows similar projects led by RBH Group in other cities. The company is also the developer of teachers village projects in its home city of Newark, as well as Hartford, Connecticut, among other markets.
“We are excited to bring our brand of social impact, Teachers Village, to Atlanta,” RBH Group founder and CEO Ron Beit said in a statement to What Now Atlanta.
For 98 Cone St., RBH Group has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to co-develop the project with Decatur-based Tapestry Development Group, plans show.
The project is also poised to attract Opportunity Zone dollars, offering long-term investors in it potential tax benefits. The site is in an Opportunity Zone census tract, and it is owned by RBH Atlanta OZ, according to the project fact sheet. The project would be one of several led by RBH and financed with Opportunity Zone investment, with others in Chicago and Stockton, California, according to its website.
On Thursday, the Invest Atlanta body’s housing committee will discuss the potential authorization of a $26 million tax-exempt loan and $4 million Westside Tax Allocation District Grant for the development. The project is budgeted to cost about $44.3 million, plans show.
Project plans call for a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms, with 94 teachers units for 60 percent of AMI and below and 46 for 80 percent of AMI and below. Units at the former will range in expected rents from $813 for the studios to $1,038 for the twos. Those in the latter will range from $1,100 to $1,410.
Current designs call for the top 13 floors of the building to hold the teachers residents, over 14 floors of senior units, two levels of parking, and two floors totaling about 26,000 square feet of retail. The project would also contain about 4,000 square feet of amenity space, including on the rooftop, for teachers, and another 20,000 square feet of amenity space for senior residents. Another 5,000 square feet or so would be used as a life-long learning center for residents.
An existing parking facility adjacent to the project site to its east would be retained and also serve as parking for future residents, workers, and visitors. In all, plans call for 407 parking spaces between the existing garage and planned residential tower.
The development’s expected construction timeline is 24 months, finishing in January of 2023, according to the project fact sheet.
