Following delays, a downtown Atlanta residential high-rise with an affordability component geared toward educators is slated to finally move forward in coming weeks, per project leaders.
Officials with New Jersey-based RBH Group tell Urbanize Atlanta schedules call for breaking ground Oct. 20 on a 457,584-square-foot tower called Teachers Village, which is planned to rise more than 30 stories near Centennial Olympic Park.
Initial designs for the project emerged in 2021. An earlier timeline called for breaking ground in 2024, but that didn’t materialize.
The mixed-use project would see 424 apartments total—a significant housing influx for the area—with none of them rented at market rate, or prices dictated by the open market, per developers.
Totality of Teachers Village's Walton Street facade, according to updated renderings. S9 Architecture
Glimpse at planned Teachers Village interior common spaces. S9 Architecture
According to designers S9 Architecture and a building permit application filed in 2023, the tower will stand 33 stories. RBH officials recently told 11Alive news the floor count will be 31. We’ve asked RBH for clarification and will update this story should that come.
RBH has described the 375-foot-tall downtown proposal as a first for Georgia, in that all apartments would be marketed to teachers, other school employees, and seniors in Atlanta as relatively affordable living options. The range of expected rents has not been specified.
The bulk of the tower—227 units—will be reserved for independent living seniors. The remaining 197 apartments will be considered workforce housing.
Ten percent of the units, or 23 homes, will be earmarked for renters who make no more than 80 percent of the area median income. The rest will be rented at below 120 percent AMI, project reps previously told Urbanize Atlanta. (So deeply discounted rental housing this is not.)
Teachers Village would replace a surface parking lot on the .92-acre property. A parking garage currently on site will remain standing, per filings with the City of Atlanta Office of Buildings.
A revised look at the Teachers Village project's planned retail space where Ted Turner Drive, at left, meets Walton Street.S9 Architecture
How the project would front Walton Street. S9 Architecture
The site is bounded by Cone Street, Ted Turner Drive, and Walton Street downtown, a block from Centennial Olympic Park in the Fairlie-Poplar Historic District.
Roughly 23,000 square feet of retail fronting Walton Street is also in the works across two stories, aimed at adding vibrancy to the district with restaurants and shops. Plans also call for 371 parking spaces.
The goal is to fill a void of workforce housing downtown and create “a model for shared, intergenerational living where residents share social responsibility and live purposeful lives,” per RBH’s marketing materials.
According to earlier Special Administrative Permit filings, plans call for topping the building with a rooftop swimming pool and sun deck, while other outdoor amenities would include landscaped terraces above the new parking podium. The minimum 43 bike parking spaces required would be included in eight racks.
The higher floors would be reserved for apartments geared toward teachers, while lower floors would see the senior independent living units. Those two variations of rentals would be accessed through separate lobbies at ground level, according to SAP filings.
The southeast corner of the Cone Street site, looking toward Centennial Olympic Park. Google Maps
In 2021, Invest Atlanta approved a $4-million Tax Allocation District grant and $26 million in tax-exempt bond financing to support construction of the portion of the project meant for teachers.
At the time, Invest Atlanta leaders pointed to RBH’s success in developing other Teachers Village projects in Newark and Hartford, Conn. that addressed a need for workforce housing.
The tower would join two other residential high-rises that claimed former parking lots and low-rise structures nearby in recent years.
The Teachers Village site is roughly a block from a 32-story student housing tower by Landmark Properties and AECOM-Canyon Partners that opened in 2023. Also within a block, the 22-story Margaritaville resort condo building by Wyndham Destinations opened with 200 suites and two floors of retail three years ago.
RBH’s construction schedule calls for delivering Teachers Village in 2027.
Find more context and imagery in the gallery above.
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