The city of Atlanta has a new plan to sell the aging civic center to the city’s housing authority for a mixed-use project with much of the project set aside for affordable housing.
The plan to sell the theater and surrounding land for $31 million would mark a fresh start for a land deal that was scuttled last year. Joining Atlanta Housing Authority in the project is Weingarten Realty of Texas, the firm that had been in prolonged talks with the city to buy the complex before Mayor Kasim Reed pulled the plug last October.
2016 VIDEO: City leaders want to sell Civic Center
Reed said Wednesday during a City Council committee meeting he would soon pitch a deal with the housing authority, but did not provide many details during his remarks.
Many of the details remain to be worked out, but Catherine Buell, the housing authority president and CEO, said 30 percent of the residential built on site would be reserved as affordable. The site likely will have multiple residential towers.
Weingarten, Reed said, would be responsible for retail and office space on the site. A deal is expected to be final on the property transaction in November.
A representative for Weingarten in Atlanta said he was not authorized to comment because of matters of confidentiality.
The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, long a money-loser for the city, could be a prime redevelopment site. The city started the process of selling it in 2014, and the following year Reed announced he was seeking a deal with Houston developer Weingarten Realty for the nearly 20-acre site.
Weingarten previously wanted to buy the complex for $30 million, and announced an ambitious $300 million redevelopment that would raze the civic center and replace it with a mix of apartments, retail, office space and a park.
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