It’s more than a new coat of paint: Otto’s Apartment Hotel has transformed the former Highland Inn and neighboring retail into a complex dedicated to affordability and being “authentically Atlanta.”
Real estate development firm Canvas Companies bought the shuttered Inn in 2021, which spurred rumors of demolitions in the community. Managing partners Michael Garber and Benjamin McLoughlin were dedicated to keeping as much of the original building as possible in its transformation, though.
It took years to make progress on the building, but now the area is transformed and open for business. The once-tan exterior is now bright blue and teal, with the trademark winking Otto owl emblazoned along the strip.
“Even though it’s gotten a facelift, it still feels like it’s 100 years old and that’s ultimately what makes it different, right?” McLoughlin said. “If we built a new building, that wouldn’t have that same feel and if you took this building and you stripped it to its studs and had all new walls, you lose sort of that soul of the building.”
The Highland Inn was originally built in 1929 as “Wynn’s apartment hotel” and functioned as workforce housing for young women in Atlanta. The rebrand to Otto’s pulls from the century old building history but it also connects to the new iteration: a series of hotel rooms rebuilt as small studio and one bedroom apartments.
The spaces themselves are small: square footage ranges from 350-500 square feet and costs around $1,200 to $1,800 a month. The leases run from three to 12-month stays geared toward people in “transitional” stages and new to Atlanta.
Garber and McLoughlin said the goal is to keep Poncey-Highland affordable, especially to the “newer generation.”
“The Highland Inn had originally been kind of a cultural node for the neighborhood with everything that went on in the ballroom,” Garber said. “We wanted to still be able to accommodate that and not just be another apartment complex, but actually be known for the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood.”
Garber and McLoughlin have been working together since 2015, renovating apartments and retail spaces. They had been looking for a mixture of the two when they found the Highland Inn. The duo embarked on a $17 million renovation project aimed at preserving and restoring the historic property.
“We tried to keep as much of the original building as possible,” McLoughlin said.
The character shines through in the hallways, where original stucco is mixed with new rugs. McLoughlin described the complex as “hospitality living,” where it looks and feels like living in a hotel but it’s an apartment.
So far there are 16 filled leases in Otto’s, but the building still has further to go. It comes with 30,000 square feet of retail space in addition to the apartments. Some have already been filled: Chimera Gallery, non-alcoholic bottle shop The Zero Co., barbershop Sanctuary, art space the Supermarket and Colette Bakery.
In the coming weeks Thrive Acting Hive will open up, as well as rug making class The Tuftest Class In Town. Big Softee and Second Wind Gear Shop are set to open this summer, too.
The new establishments will fill empty retail space North Highland Avenue, including the former Highland Row Antiques location. The shop shut down in December, 2022, and put out a public post accusing the developers of raising rent by nearly 450 percent.
Garber and McLoughlin said they had negotiated with the antique shop for a very long time, and their last offer was below market rate — lower than what the current tenant The Supermarket pays.
“We did whatever we could to keep them, we even said that we’d let them stay for a period of time at their existing rate,” McLoughlin said. “But it was clear to us they did not want to keep running the business.”
Despite the complication, the duo is optimistic about the host of entrepreneurs filling up the space. McLoughlin said the retail leases are still the lowest rents in the neighborhood.
“It’s attainable, it is entrepreneur friendly,” Garber said. “I think there was this fear that it was going to be nothing but Starbucks and there’s not a Starbucks.”
The partners also teased future developments in the empty cafe space and the ballroom and bar below the inn. The ballroom lease is already signed with “another restaurant in town,” and the cafe lease “should be official soon.”
“It’s what we’ve been envisioning for four years, and it’s actually coming to fruition,” Garber said.
Super Cheap Flip.
The paint on the façade is hideous as well as the faux laminate flooring in the units.
Horrified to see photos of our beloved turn-of-the-century hotel replaced with brutalist, cookie-cutter modern rooms. Everything that gave this hotel its old world charm has been unceremoniously gutted from the wood floors to the carpets and craftsman doors – replaced with IKEA-style furniture that would look more at place in a hospital lobby. The old furniture and artwork wasn’t likely original from when it was first built, but at least it was true to the hotel’s Art Nouveau origins. Grateful for the many times we got enjoy this beautiful hotel but sad to see its soul has been ripped out of it.