In a city known for strip club culture as much as music, massive conventions, and global sporting events, Midtown’s The Cheetah lounge has stood as a nondescript, risqué stalwart along Spring Street for decades. But that’s set to change soon, developers tell Urbanize Atlanta.
The Cheetah, which has occupied a former midcentury car dealership at 887 Spring St. since 1987 (and a location nearby for 10 years before that), is set to fall for student-housing redevelopment in roughly a year, officials have confirmed.
After nearly five decades in business—and numerous rebuffed offers from other well-capitalized developers over the years—The Cheetah bills itself as an upscale, fully nude nightlife destination and the “Southeast’s most renowned nightclub.”
Officials with Chicago-based developer Core Spaces tell Urbanize they’ve entered a partnership with Birmingham’s Capstone Communities to turn The Cheetah’s low-rise building and parking lot into a multi-phase, mixed-use project that banks on proximity to Georgia Tech—a tactic employed by numerous other high-rise ventures erected over the past decade in nearby blocks.
Inquiries submitted to The Cheetah this week were not returned as of press time.
The development team refers to The Cheetah’s site as “one of the last major undeveloped parcels in Midtown.”
The nondescript Midtown nightlife landmark, as seen before its tempting rooftop sign was removed at the request of nearby office owners, who paid big bucks for the subtraction. Google Maps
The first phase of development, as led by Core Spaces, will see 1,600 beds for students and more than 5,000 square feet of retail space fronting sidewalks.
The building will offer “layered amenities and street-level retail designed to activate the pedestrian experience, along with a third-floor amenity deck that enhances the project’s architectural character and complements the surrounding urban fabric,” according to a project description.
The lone available rendering (see below) depicts a building standing roughly two dozen stories with multi-level glass frontages on Spring Street, just south of Eighth Street. Atlanta-based Dwell Design Studio has been hired to design phase one.
Plans for the 1,600-bed phase one of the Core Spaces project. Courtesy of Core Spaces
Core Spaces reps tell Urbanize the tentative timeline calls for breaking ground in the third quarter of next year where The Cheetah currently does business. Phase one is scheduled to be finished in 2029.
No outlook on subsequent phases was available this week. Fulton County permitting records show no recent pre-construction activity at the site.
City records indicate 887 Spring St. is comprised of two properties totaling just shy of 2 acres, both owned by Trac-Eric Inc.
The larger portion of the property where The Cheetah’s building stands last sold for $2 million in 1986. The smaller section to the south last traded in 1980 for $250,000, records show.
How the Cheetah's expanded building and parking lot have become a low-rise anomaly in the neighborhood. Google Maps
Five years ago, rumors swirled that another Chicago developer, CA Ventures, was buying The Cheetah’s property for more than $30 million, but that didn’t materialize. Both Cousins Properties and Selig Enterprises—two commercial real estate titans in Atlanta—reportedly took stabs at buying The Cheetah in the late 2010s, to no avail.
Both Core Spaces and Capstone Communities have developed student housing near Georgia Tech in recent years.
The site is a block from Core Spaces' first student-housing project in town, Hub Atlanta, which opened for Georgia Tech’s 2023 fall semester. The development team has described that 292-unit building—a glass and panel-clad structure with a four-story parking garage almost fully concealed—as “stunning.”
Capstone Communities’ previous work in Atlanta includes the two-building Inspire Atlanta project, which opened just south of Georgia Tech’s campus (with views for miles) in 2021.
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