Veranda at Assembly celebrates grand opening, provides senior housing in Doraville 

The grand opening of the Assembly project, now called Veranda at Assembly, in Doraville on Thursday was a celebration of public-private partnership and collaboration between city, county, state, and federal leadership. 

The event marked the completion of an apartment complex with 100 residential units, designed for seniors in Doraville, with 80 percent designated as affordable housing — the first affordable housing apartments in the city. The project has been in the works for more than a decade, transforming a shuttered industrial site into a mixed-use, transit-oriented hub for the community. 

Executives from Integral Group, the master developer of the project, were joined by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Adrianne Todman, Deputy Commissioner of Georgia’s Department of Community Affairs Wesley Brooks, DeKalb County CEO and CEO-elect Michael Thurmond DeKalb and Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, DeKalb Housing Authority President and CEO Pete Walker, Doraville Mayor Pro Tem Gerald Evans, and executive director of JPMorgan Chase Community Development Banking Caitlin Gossens at the opening remarks on Thursday morning. 

“This is a community built to last, designed to enrich the lives of its residents and the surrounding area,” Integral Chairman Egbert Perry said. 

Formerly the home of a General Motors plant, which closed in 2008, the site now includes film studios, the Serta Simmons Bedding headquarters, the Nalley Collision Center, and the newly completed senior housing complex. Integral, along with partners Consolidated Asset Management Services and Macauley Schmit & Associates, acquired the site for $50 million in 2014. 

“For decades, the GM site was the economic engine that Doraville relied upon. Then suddenly, it was gone. Not only did it disappear when it closed, but it also became an eyesore — a vacant site of 165 acres — changing how people viewed the city of Doraville itself,” Vicki Lundy Wilbon, President of Development at Integral, said. 

She applauded local leaders for embracing the vision for redevelopment and supporting the project “every step of the way.” 

City and county officials emphasized the need for affordable housing that the project provides.

For Georgians in a minimum wage job, it would take working nearly 140 hours per week to afford a two bedroom apartment anywhere in metro Atlanta, according to a study from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That expense can be even more of a challenge for seniors on a fixed income. 

“DeKalb is rising,” outgoing CEO Thurmond said. “In the shadow of great wealth, we’ll be measured on how we care for those who live on the margins of our society.” 

Ensuring affordable senior apartments at Veranda was made possible by working with government partners, including funding from HUD specifically designated to keep some units in the building below market prices. 

“We’re doing it for the seniors… who can’t afford where they are, to have some place to live with dignity and affordability,” HUD Secretary Todman said.  

She touted the federal actions taken by the Biden Administration to address the housing crisis. 

“Over the past several years, HUD has provided $21 million in community development and housing development funds to this county on top of the $8 million being provided as part of the American Rescue plan,” Todman said during her remarks. “We’ve had more apartments built over the past couple years than in the past 20 years, and that includes these units that are sitting behind me.” 

The federal government is also working to remove barriers to building more of these types of residential developments and starter homes in an effort to construct more housing and bring costs down, she said, as well as to provide another $100 million in federal funding toward housing projects over the next few months and a proposed $900 million for more senior housing across the nation.

“Working with Sec. Buttigieg at the U.S. Department of Transportation, we are going to supercharge transit-oriented development,” she said.  

The $1.6 billion project in Doraville was an unlikely one to get off the ground, since Perry wasn’t interested in developments in Atlanta when the opportunity came to Integral in 2014, he shared during a panel hosted by the Urban Land Institute later Thursday morning. 

The development nearly fell apart in early 2016 over disagreements between Integral and county officials about use of tax allocation district (TAD) funding. Alternative financing for the site came together later that year, with other public dollars subsidizing the infrastructure improvements needed to deliver the project. 

“How do we simplify this very difficult thing of building housing? It should not take as long as it does,” Todman said. “It should not be complicated as it is when there’s such a need.”

Speakers at the grand opening held up the mixed-use project and Integral as exemplary of their vision for development in DeKalb. 

Mayor Pro Tem Evans also shared that the city council of Doraville approved plans and funding for the redevelopment of the city’s downtown corridor on Wednesday night, with a vision to add new greenspaces, a new library, and additional retail and restaurant space right off of Buford Highway. 

“The future of DeKalb is strategic development, development that is equitable,” incoming DeKalb CEO Cochran-Johnson said. “And we need partners.”