Downtown South Contractors Add 2 Buildings to Extensive Portfolio

Since taking over eight blocks of Newport RE’s former holdings in South Downtown, the tech entrepreneurs who run Atlanta Ventures have said acquiring even more properties isn’t out of the question, if the right opportunities arise.

Once again, they put their money where their mouth is, with money raised locally and debt-free.

Atlanta Ventures recently added two Peachtree Street buildings totaling over 20,000 square feet near Underground Atlanta to its portfolio, with plans to activate them as building bases as soon as possible. The team’s holdings include over 50 buildings and 6 acres of parking lots south of the Five Points MARTA station, just east of Centennial Yards’ Gulch remake.

After about three months of negotiations, Atlanta Ventures, led by David Cummings and Jon Birdsong, now owns 77 Peachtree St. (13,300 square feet) and the neighboring building at 81 Peachtree St. (8,800 square feet), known as The Bootery and vacant for years. Both have been publicly listed for sale and are surrounded by buildings the developers already own — “They were really two missing teeth in the wallet,” as Birdsong describes it — and are not considered historic, so historic tax credits won’t apply to their renovations.

Atlanta Ventures has hired two project managers who are expected to start work early this month, and plans call for those employees to use the Peachtree Street buildings to manage construction along Hotel Row almost immediately.

“We’re going to go in there, work to understand the condition (of the buildings) and probably use them for construction offices,” Birdsong said.

Elsewhere, work is ramping up on what’s being called “Project Elle,” an L-shaped development of more than 25 buildings that starts at Ted Turner Drive/Mitchell Street and stretches up Broad Street and into Five Points. Plans call for converting it into more than 100 rehab apartments, 150,000 square feet of retail space and 31,000 square feet of Atlanta Tech Village—Sylvan, downtown’s answer to Buckhead’s tech startup hub. (The latter is expected to begin construction this month, according to Birdsong.)

Atlanta Ventures’ goal is to complete construction on the majority of these buildings by the end of the year.

“We’re using historic tax credits, so there are things we can’t control,” Birdsong said. “(The permitting documents) are being submitted as quickly as possible… obviously with everything that’s going on at Hotel Row, (we want to) make sure (it) is active, alive and vibrant for the 3.5 million people who are coming here for the World Cup in 23 months.”

Another goal is to transform a parking lot near the intersection of Mitchell and Broad streets into “a nice kind of town square” before the World Cup, Birdsong said.

“We would like to have all of the buildings (on Broad Street, between Mitchell Street and MLK Jr. Drive) completed in time for the World Cup,” Birdsong says. “We don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver. Our architects are actively working on a lot of buildings right now, analyzing what can be done, what can’t be done, and how to take advantage of historic tax credits for these projects.”

As Birdsong acknowledges, there are a lot of moving parts to the South Downtown project right now. Here’s a quick Q&A on some of the other aspects:

As for the largest building in the portfolio, 222 Mitchell, which was purchased in March after a foreclosure. It was previously under construction as an office building, but Atlanta Ventures’ plans now call for residential:

“We have three architects who have brought a fresh perspective to the project and we’re going to spend the entire month of July analyzing it and refining our thinking on the model to see if it can meet our performance criteria,” Birdsong says. “We’re going to be patient, but we’re moving with urgency. 222 is a big part of the plan and we have to figure out how to put the pieces together to make it make sense. (Because the historic tax credits won’t apply), it’s a traditional real estate play.”

The outlook for Crates, the record store and South Downtown’s third business, which will open along Hotel Row. (The concept, focused on used records, is being developed by Daryl Harris, who runs Moods Music, a Little Five Points staple.)

“We’ve had meetings with the contractors (the last week of June) and I would say in September (for an estimated opening date),” Birdsong says. “We’re down to the details of the budget and whether we keep that in or out of the project, which has been very exciting.”

About the debt-free financing of the South Downtown project, which grew out of the successes of the original Atlanta Tech Village startup:

“This is money and dollars coming from businesses that were founded on Peachtree Street and Piedmont Road,” Birdsong said. “This is local money. We can’t stress that enough, because we’re as local as it gets. (Cummings) is going to invest nine figures into Project Elle. We’ll say it’s $100 million.”

On the transparency of the redevelopment process so far:

“We’re pretty transparent. We’re not trying to do anything under people’s noses, but we’re also going to make tough decisions that not everyone is going to like. But this is all about the downtown that the majority of Atlantans want, a vibrant, active downtown — and a safe downtown, that’s a big deal.”

Miscellaneous:

Atlanta Venture is currently in talks with potential tenants for the six spaces on Hotel Row that have yet to be leased. According to the owners, these spaces could range from soul food and pizza to Cuban cuisine and more.

Around the corner, Birdsong believes that the section of Broad Street between Mitchell Street and MLK Jr. Drive, with its historic brick structures and intimate scale, has the potential to be the “most charming and unique block” in the entire city.

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