This article originally appeared on the Curbed Atlanta website.
The latest trendy living options for Georgia Tech students are set to materialize very close to campus, joining a wave of similar projects that have transformed sections of Midtown in recent years.
A two-building project called Centennial Lofts broke ground this week on a site across the street from Bobby Dodd Stadium that’s been vacant since 2011.
The new venture, sited at the corner of North Avenue and Centennial Olympic Park Drive, will bring 239 apartments for students (750 beds total) in buildings standing seven and 12 stories. The goal is to “offset increasing enrollment at the university,” according to reps with Hoar Construction, which has teamed with developer Capstone Collegiate Communities.
The taller building will feature a pool deck, club house, and saunas, among other amenities. Each apartment will have its own living and kitchen space and bathrooms, officials noted.
Centennial Lofts will rise on the site of a former public housing tower for seniors—the 1970s Roosevelt House, which had stood 17 stories—imploded eight years ago.
The project was initially discussed two years ago. A Hoar Construction rep told Curbed Atlanta that permitting and budgeting work between Georgia Tech, the City of Atlanta, and the design and build team was unexpectedly lengthy.
Now, Centennial Lofts is scheduled to open for the fall 2021 semester.
A few blocks south, 17-story apartment development Generation Atlanta is expected to open with 366 market-rate rentals and substantial retail space (279,000 square feet) next year.
That marks the first new tower built in the neighborhood in more than two decades. The Olympic Village towers, now used as Georgia Tech dorms, and the Coca-Cola corporate campus were the only tall buildings south of North Avenue in the area.
Centennial Lofts will join numerous student-housing projects that have sprouted in recent years across the Connector in Midtown, wooing GT students with perks ranging from an urbanized Taco Bell to poolside Jumbotron.
Major student-focused housing ventures under construction nearby include the 28-story Jumbotron, replacing a decades-old Dominos pizza outpost, and a 27-story building by CA Ventures also on Spring Street, near The Varsity.
