As the Athens Housing Authority prepares to kick off Phase 2 of the Bethel Midtown Village redevelopment, residents still have questions about whether they’ll be able to move back into the neighborhood once the project is complete.
One 20-year Bethel resident at an Aug. 4 forum organized by First AME Church—just a block away, at the corner of Hull and Dougherty streets—said residents have been receiving “mixed signals” about their ability to return. “They don’t want to be pushed out and new people come into what was home for them,” she said.
Athens Housing Authority CEO Connie Staudinger was unequivocal: “Yes, ma’am, absolutely they will be able to come back,” she said. Staudinger, who spent most of her career in the affordable housing field in Charlotte, took over for the retired Rick Parker in January.
Demolition, grading and infrastructure work is nearly complete on Phase 1, which will consist of 80 subsidized and 40 market-rate units, Staudinger said. “We’re hoping by this fall that you’ll start to see some things rising out of the ground,” she said. That phase is expected to be finished in 2025.
Phase 2 tentatively includes 150 units wrapped around a parking deck. All of those units will be public housing or subsidized using federal tax credits that housing authorities sell to corporations seeking a tax writeoff. Athens-Clarke County is paying for streets and other infrastructure with $44 million from SPLOST 2020, a sales tax referendum passed by voters. Other funding is coming from private developers Columbia Residential and Jonathan Rose Partners.
In total, the Bethel redevelopment will include about 700-800 units, replacing Bethel’s 190 units and 32 other public housing units located just north. The project will also recreate the street grid that was destroyed during Bethel’s construction in the late 1960s and include amenities like a park. The AHA has long pledged that no public housing units will be lost, and the project will include more affordable units than currently exist, with a split of two-thirds subsidized to one-third market rate. “It could be very transformative for downtown when this is all built out,” Staudinger said.
The number of units is subject to change, though, because like all pre-pandemic construction projects, it’s been beset by rising costs and interest rates. In fact, it’s lucky to have survived, she said. “A lot of projects ended up getting a bullet put in them,” she said.
Residents said the property management company hired by AHA to run the formerly privately owned apartment complex in 2020 has been telling them that if they’re late on rent or cited by police, they won’t be allowed to return to the new development once it’s finished. They also complained that rock blasting during construction has been a literal headache, on-site washers and dryers aren’t working, and demolishing several buildings has made an already-bad pest problem worse. Staudinger apologized for a lack of communication and urged residents to come to the AHA if they have problems with the management company. AHA is scheduling more meetings on the Bethel property later this month, she said.
Odds and Ends
A Korean manufacturer is building a new facility in Athens that will employ 100 people, Gov. Brian Kemp and Mayor Kelly Girtz announced last week. Seoul-based Duckshin Housing builds metal decks and frames used in construction. The company will be hiring welders, machine operators and forklift drivers for its new $15 million facility at the Athena Industrial Park on Olympic Drive. “By coming to Athens, we can be closer to growing and new construction projects in Georgia and all states of the U.S.,” Myung Hwan Kim, chairman of Duckshin Housing, said in a news release. “We are excited to join the Athens-Clarke community and look forward to this new opportunity.”
The University of Georgia has promoted deputy chief Jeffrey Clark to chief of the campus police department. Clark, who joined UGAPD in 2021, spent 20 years with the ACC police department and was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. He replaces Dan Silk, who was promoted to associate vice president for public safety. The other finalist was Greg Williams, a former UGAPD officer and current police chief for the University of North Georgia.
While many Athens residents may have already noticed the erratic drivers and long lines at big-box stores indicating that summer is over and UGA students are returning, the true crush starts Friday, Aug. 11, when about 9,000 dorm-dwellers move into on-campus housing. Be wary of U-Hauls, and avoid Target at all costs.
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