What a difference a decade makes.
On May 2, the City of Atlanta and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta announced a $300 million initiative to build and preserve affordable housing in the city and the region.
The setting was the Academy Lofts at Adair Park, the award-winning renovation of George W. Adair School, built in 1912 and operated as a school until 1973 when it closed, remaining vacant for decades.
Everybody who was anybody in the affordable housing space attended the press conference when it was announced that the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation would be investing $100 million in affordable housing.
The Community Foundation pledged to raise another $100 million, of which $32 million already had been raised. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens then announced the city, pending approval from the Atlanta City Council, would be investing another $100 million in an affordable housing bond package.
“If your love language is affordable housing and you believe Atlanta is a group project, then your heart flutters in this room,” Dickens told the crowd gathered at Academy Lofts. “Today I feel good. This is an opportunity we will seize with urgency.”
The event crystallized how the various entities and players in affordable housing are finally working together on a common goal – a stark difference from a decade ago.
To appreciate the change, one only has to roll back the clock to 2014.
Developer Stan Sugarman, co-founder of Stryant Investments, had offered to buy the Adair School to develop workforce housing, and the Atlanta Public Schools was a willing seller. But the deal hit a major snag when then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed refused to turn over the title of the building to APS — something that had happened routinely in the past.
The sale was being held hostage in a dispute between APS and the city over the Atlanta BeltLine’s Tax Allocation District, a situation that ended up in a stalemate with lawsuits that lasted years. Meanwhile, the Adair School continued to deteriorate – delaying the promise of a revitalized historic building in an up-and-coming southwest Atlanta neighborhood.
“We were caught in a tug of war between Atlanta Public Schools and the city over the BeltLine TAD,” Sugarman said in an interview on May 7 reflecting on the past nine years. “It was a political firestorm, and we were caught in the middle.”
Dickens, then an Atlanta city councilman, took a special interest in Sugarman’s plight, introducing legislation in 2015 to urge the city to allow APS to sell the building.
But it took until Jan. 11, 2017, before Mayor Reed announced he would turn over the title of the Adair School to APS so it could sell the building to Sugarman. It just so happened Sugarman was with his business partners at City Hall that day making a presentation to a couple of councilmembers. Dickens told them they should stay for Reed’s press conference.
After that, Sugarman was able to move forward with renovating the school and developing 35 micro-residential units as part of an artist-driven redevelopment. The rental units became available in 2020 and the project was completed in 2022. The delay of those three years, however, cost Sugarman and his partners between $500,000 and $1 million in additional costs because of the continued deterioration of the school property.
Fast forward to today.
To go from that kind of acrimony with numerous lawsuits between the city and APS as well as between the city and the Atlanta Housing Authority officials to the community consensus that exists today is almost breathtaking.
“It feels like we all are going in the same direction,” Sugarman said. “But because the affordable housing crisis has gotten so acute, we have to work together.”
Dickens has a goal to build or preserve 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2030. So far, 2,000 units have been secured and another 5,700 are under development.
But regional estimates show a need for at least 75,000 units so Atlanta can retain its reputation as an affordable city.
“Basically, we stopped building permanent affordable housing for eight years,” Sugarman said. “The leadership of Atlanta sees what has happened in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles – if you don’t build housing for everyone, you have wild social inequality.”
Sugarman also said his firm lost $1 million on the Adair Park renovation project. And he recognizes the 35 units at Adair Park are just a drop in the bucket.
The need became even more apparent after last week’s press conference when within 24 hours, 100 new people applied to become renters in the fully leased Academy Lofts. That’s on top of the 700 people already on the waiting list.
“It just tells me we’re not building enough,” said Sugarman, who added that the top cause of homelessness in Atlanta is the cost of housing, not substance abuse or mental illness.”
Tonette Freeman was one of the lucky ones who was able to move into Academy Lofts two years ago thanks to the Partners for Home program that helps people who are homeless.
“I didn’t know what to do,” said Freeman, a widow who became emotional during last week’s announcement. “I’m just thankful I have a place to come home to.”
Frank Fernandez, president and CEO of the Community Foundation, told those gathered that the $300 million initiative will translate into thousands of affordable housing units. But he added it will take $1 billion or more to address the need.
Sarah Kirsch, who heads the Community Foundation’s housing funds, agreed.
“We have a dearth of affordable housing,” she said at the event. “We have this window of opportunity when we really think can move the needle on affordable housing.”
A hopeful spirit permeated the Adair Park event.
“We have got the whole city speaking as one team,” City Councilman Antonio Lewis said.
Courtney English, the city’s chief policy officer and a senior advisor to the mayor, called it a full-circle moment for Dickens, who as councilmember had helped put pressure to allow the sale of the Adair school.
“Atlanta has always been a hopeful city,” English said. “There’s nothing wrong with Atlanta that can’t be solved with what’s right with Atlanta.”
For Sugarman, the May 2 event made all the ups and downs of the past nine years worthwhile.
“It was validation for all the pain and suffering we had been through for nine years,” he said. “It was one of the highlights of my career that we were used as an example for this huge investment for affordable housing in the city.”
“I can definitely say we are all rowing in the same direction,” Sugarman continued. “But unfortunately, we are not going fast enough because we started late. We are in emergency mode.”
