Major Downtown Atlanta Middle-Income Housing Project Gets Green Light For $370M In Bond Financing
New Jersey-based RBH Group received the OK from Fulton County economic developers to issue up to $370M in bonds to develop a 34-story affordable housing tower in Downtown Atlanta.
The Development Authority of Fulton County, recently rebranded Develop Fulton, approved the federal tax-exempt bond package for RBH on Tuesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Once those bonds are issued, RBH will break ground on what it has dubbed Teachers Village Atlanta, a 416K SF, 426-unit apartment tower at 98 Cone St. that will target middle-income earners such as public school teachers and seniors.
“It’s going to be the largest middle-income housing project of its kind that we know of in the country. To be in the heart of downtown, near as close as possible to two main MARTA lines in order for our teachers to be able to access as many schools as possible was very deliberate and intentional,” RBH CEO Ron Beit said during the authority meeting, according to the AJC.
RBH will construct the tower atop a surface parking lot and will leave the existing parking deck untouched, Bisnow previously reported.
According to RBH’s plans, 203 units of the tower will be capped at rents affordable to individuals earning about $90K per year or $129K per year for households of four, 40 will be reserved as workforce housing units targeted to individuals earning a little more than $60K per year and households earning $86K, and another 227 units will be marketed to seniors and priced at a 15% discount to market-rate apartments.
The tower will also be home to 26K SF of retail and 9K SF of amenity spaces, and RBH will have wellness and social welfare services for residents.
RBH plans to issue $250M of the bond package in October, with the rest being issued during the project’s development, Allison Dyer, a counsel for the developer, told the AJC. Construction is set to begin in the fourth quarter with Teachers Village opening in the third quarter of 2026.
Invest Atlanta, the economic development arm for the city of Atlanta, awarded RBH a $4M tax allocation district grant and more than $26M in tax-exempt bond financing for the project in 2021, What Now Atlanta previously reported.
The development authority said neither the authority nor the county will be on the hook if RBH defaults on the bonds.
