The new owner of a 1920s Masons hall within sight of a paved Atlanta BeltLine section plans to revive the landmark commercial building and create a springboard for local, entrepreneurial success, a broker tells Urbanize Atlanta.
Anthony Gee, cofounder and partner of The Core Venture Studio, closed on a $1.1-million purchase this week of the distinctive Masonic structure at 1331 Metropolitan Parkway, located about a block south of the BeltLine’s first finished Southside Trail segment.
Gee, who specializes in adaptive-reuse commercial projects with an entrepreneurial bent, plans to create a second location of Koncept House in Capitol View. It would be modeled after a similar concept in Castleberry Hill that functions as a hub of offices, showrooms, and more private loft studios.
The original Koncept House occupies a 23,000-square-foot former warehouse on Mangum Street, near Mercedes-Benz Stadium. More than 30 businesses currently operate there—ranging from skincare brands, a vintage bike restoration company, and two coffee roasters—with more than 90 percent of those entrepreneurs being Black women, according to Travis D. Hughes, of Hughes Investment Partners, who brokered the Capitol View deal.
“We believe [the former Masons temple] is the ideal building for today’s creative entrepreneurs in search of functional showroom, maker, and creative space,” Gee said in a statement provided to Urbanize Atlanta. “We’ll make significant capital improvements while preserving the detailed original masonry aesthetic and highlighting an interior that features gorgeous high ceilings and hardwood floors.”
The 1331 Metropolitan Parkway building's location (in red) in relation to the Southside Trail and other area landmarks. Google Maps
The broader Southwest Atlanta context, with the BeltLine's Southside Trail crossing Metropolitan Parkway via the bridge at center.Vantage Realty Partners/Ten-X Commercial, via LoopNet/CoStar
Gee’s other Atlanta ventures have included Collider, a tech-focused coworking space in Midtown, and the purchase of the former Capitol City Bank & Trust Company building downtown, which he eventually sold to Newport US. Gee also acted as co-developer of Pittsburgh Yards, the 31-acre, adaptive-reuse employment center located a few blocks from the Capitol View property.
Projects like Koncept House and Pittsburgh Yards “are places where local entrepreneurs can fulfill their dreams of business ownership through service to a customer base of nearby residents,” Hughes wrote in an email. “The result is an economic ecosystem where resources are generated and circulated within the neighborhood—as opposed to being extracted to other areas of town, or to other cities altogether.”
The former Masons building made waves when it went to auction two years ago, just as the nearby BeltLine section was entering the home stretch of construction.
It was so important to neighbors in Capitol View and Capitol View Manor, they formed a grassroots Community Investment Group to bid on the building themselves—and succeeded in raising $188,000 in just the first four days of a informal campaign.
A top-level auditorium space of 5,000 square feet.Vantage Realty Partners/Ten-X Commercial, via LoopNet/CoStar
The two-day bidding process for the three-story, 15,000-square-foot classical structure was scheduled to start at $300,000. Although interest in the building appeared high, Hughes said it went unsold at that auction. (Property records indicate it hasn’t traded since 2016, when it sold for $265,000, a relative song.
More recently, the property had been listed by Vantage Realty Partners for $1.25 million.
The Southside Trail section over Metropolitan Parkway opened later in 2021, with an ADA-accessible ramp leading down to the street, making for an easy pedestrian connection from the Capitol View property.
Constructed in 1924 by the Masons, the Robert Smith Pringle-designed brick temple served as a communal hub for decades, but it was just 7 percent occupied at the time it went to auction.
Auction materials from 2021 described the Capitol View location as an “up-and-coming area of Atlanta [that’s] become extremely desirable” with “a flood of revitalizing development.”
Officials with the Atlanta Preservation Center and Easements Atlanta pledged support for the neighborhood group trying to purchase the building two years ago. At the time, APC executive director David Mitchell said the National Register of Historic Places considers the old temple a vital component of the Capitol View Neighborhood Historic District.
The 1924 former Masons building on Capitol View's Metropolitan Avenue, located about a block south of the BeltLine corridor. Vantage Realty Partners/Ten-X Commercial/CoStar
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