How the high-rise replacement for a longstanding, risqué Midtown landmark could look and function is becoming clearer. 

Chicago-based developer Core Spaces entered a partnership earlier this year with Birmingham’s Capstone Communities to turn The Cheetah, one of Atlanta’s best-known strip clubs, into a multi-phase, mixed-use project geared toward students that capitalizes on proximity to Georgia Tech. 

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported Thursday, that venture’s initial phase calls for a 27-story building that would tower with metal and glass over Spring Street, with retail at the base, according to a Special Administrative Permit application filed this week. 

Plans for the 2-acre site call for 532 student apartments with about 1,600 beds, along with a two-level parking deck with just 119 vehicle spaces. (That clapping sound is urbanists proclaiming a minor victory.) Meanwhile, the northwest corner of the property, where The Cheetah building stands today, would be held for a future phase when the market dictates more development will be viable, as the AJC relayed. 

How the first phase of Core Spaces' Cheetah-replacing tower would look and function along Spring Street in Midtown, with HUB branding, according to recent filings. Submitted/Core Spaces; designs, Dwell Design Group

Core Spaces previously said the phase-one retail facet will see 5,000 square feet of space fronting sidewalks, just south of Eighth Street. Atlanta-based Dwell Design Studio has been hired to design phase one. 

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 an earlier project description. 

The development team has referred to The Cheetah’s site as “one of the last major undeveloped parcels in Midtown.” A street-level façade rendering indicates the new tower would be branded as a “HUB” property, like another new Core Spaces tower nearby. 

Core Spaces officials didn’t respond today to a request for more information, including a construction timeline. Company reps previously told Urbanize Atlanta plans call for breaking ground in the third quarter of next year where The Cheetah currently does business and then opening phase one in 2029.  

How the Cheetah's expanded building and parking lot have become a low-rise anomaly in the neighborhood. Google Maps

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 Cheetah has occupied a former midcentury car dealership at 887 Spring St. since 1987—and a location nearby for 10 years before that. After nearly five decades in business, the business still bills itself as an upscale, fully nude nightlife destination and the “Southeast’s most renowned nightclub.”

Neither Core Spaces nor Capstone Communities are strangers to building on large scales around Georgia Tech.  

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.” Meanwhile, 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.  

An earlier rendering showing plans for the 1,600-bed phase one of the Core Spaces project. Courtesy of Core Spaces

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 Atlanta commercial real estate titans—reportedly took stabs at buying The Cheetah in the late 2010s, to no avail. 

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. 

So a pittance versus Midtown values today, in other words. 

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