During the Athens-Clarke County December 10 planning commission meeting, CORE Spaces’ representative Rodney King, and Antunovich Associates’ Jeff Zelisko provided a revised version of their previously-proposed and denied student housing development, at 155 Mitchell St. The motion to deny the proposal passed by a vote of five to four. It is unclear whether or not CORE Spaces will propose the project for the third time. What Now Atlanta reached out to CORE Spaces for comment.
The proposal is for an eight-story building with 340 bedrooms split among 155 residential units as well as 209 parking spaces and first-floor commercial space — developers had previously proposed a ten-story retirement condominium at the site which sits across from townhomes and is located within a mile of Landmark Properties’ The Mark Athens development.
To address the concerns of the members of the commission as it pertains to the large swaths of empty retail space in many of the student housing complexes in Athens, Zelisko and King presented specific proposals as to how its project would be occupied in terms of uses. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many retail spaces have been empty, especially in student housing complexes including 909 Broad, The Mark Athens, and Uncommon Athens. The proposals presented included a “State of Fitness” (gym), “The Space” (co-working), “Infuse” (open coffee/bar), and “Collective & Co.” (work incubating space for smaller companies.) King stated to the planning commission that they had received commitments from tenants for all four concepts contingent on the site’s development which would bring a new commercial corridor to the currently underserved area.
Zelisko also drew attention to the new proposal’s differences compared to the previously approved condominium. The most significant differences were the greater number of units due to the development’s type and the reduction of commercial space.
Concerns raised by the planning commission focused on the narrow nature of Mitchell Street which is a one-lane, two-way roadway. Mitchell Street leads to Williams and Thomas Street which are also both one-lane, two-way streets not proximate to Oconee Street. However, the planning commission did recognize the changes that were made to the proposal’s design in order to make it more suitable to the Downtown cityscape. Planning commission members raised the point that the development would’ve been better suited to the city if it had been proposed earlier to prevent the other developments that have not melded well with the cityscape. Further, the members of the commission were unified around the location’s future uses as they agreed that the city would be better off without having more developments more proximate to the Downtown core.
