Eight years ago, Rick Parker and the Athens Housing Authority board of directors approached the Athens-Clarke County Mayor and Commission with the innovative idea of using SPLOST money to rebuild Bethel Midtown Village as a mixed-income community. One pandemic, one global supply chain meltdown and more than $40 million later, the first phase of The View at NoDA (North Downtown Athens) is officially open (and yes, the name does bring to mind SodoSopa from “South Park”).
Parker, the former AHA executive director who retired in 2023, said that when he came to Athens in 1989, people kept complaining about the condition of what was then Bethel Homes, and he had to remind them that it was not an AHA property. But in 2017, after the successful redevelopment of Jack R. Wells Homes, better known as Pauldoe, local officials “began to contemplate a bold and radical solution,” he said.
As recounted by Parker at a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 2, the project almost died at several junctures. First, then-owner HJ Russell, an Atlanta-based construction and real estate company, unexpectedly listed the property for sale 10 months before Athens voters were scheduled to vote on SPLOST 2020, a package of sales tax-funded capital projects that included $39 million for the Bethel redevelopment. Private partners Columbia Residential and Jonathan Rose Companies put up $16 million to buy it, with the late Columbia Residential founder Noel Khalil sealing the deal with a personal phone call to the Russell family, Parker said.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, interrupting the public input process. Subsequently, supply chains broke down, drastically increasing the cost of construction. The turmoil caused interest rates to rise, making financing more difficult. But the project moved forward with additional contributions from the ACC government and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
Now, a portion of the run-down and crime-ridden Bethel has been demolished, replaced with 120 new apartments. Forty of them are public housing, 40 are reserved for residents who make less than 60% of the area median income (about $54,000 a year for a family of four, as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development), and 40 are market rate. The development provides “safe, quality and affordable housing that changes lives,” said the current AHA executive director, Sheila Crisp. LeMoni Burney of the DCA called it “a model for responsible redevelopment that centers the needs of its residents and the community long-term.”
Former Bethel residents displaced by construction can move back to The View at NoDa with no rent increase and all moving expenses covered by the private developers, Columbia Residential and Jonathan Rose. That’s a point AHA board chair Valdon Daniel, who grew up in public housing himself, hammered home repeatedly.
“The projects, at that time, was a wonderful place to live,” Daniel said, full of working families who wanted “a decent place for their children.”
Charice Heywood, a banker who helped finance The View at NoDA, agreed with that sentiment. “I always judge a community by saying, ‘Would I put my mother there?’” she said, “and it’s an absolute ‘yes.’”
Construction on the second phase of the development, which will eventually include more than 500 units, is scheduled to start this fall, according to Charlie Gluodenis, the AHA’s chief real estate officer. Bethel Midtown Village had about 180 units.
Due to a shaky economy, Mayor Kelly Girtz did not allocate another $5 million to an affordable housing fund he created, along with the county commission, last year. But the initial $5 million remains, along with unspent funds from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act. “I challenge us to continue on this path, because there is more fertile ground in this city we love so much,” Girtz said.
Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.
