Images: Near East Atlanta Village, throwback corner build advances

Plans are coming into clearer focus for how a unique eastside project with a repurposed Masonic Lodge at its core will soon look and function.

Commercial permit paperwork filed this week with the City of Atlanta’s Office of Buildings shows retooled designs for the most prominent section of The Lodge, a mixed-use venture that has topped out several facets where Ormewood Park meets East Atlanta Village.

According to that paperwork, the classic brick-clad building will stand four total stories as speculative office space, meaning it’s being constructed without tenants in place. The ground floor calls for retail space, with three levels of offices above, and each floor will be white-boxed, or left as raw space for future tenants, according to the filings.

That building will stand over the intersection of Moreland and Glenwood avenues, facing East Atlanta Village and thousands of commuters per day.

Other components of The Lodge project—including its multifamily portions—have topped out along Glenwood and Portland avenues.

The Lodge initially broke ground with demolition work in 2021, combining eight parcels that previously housed individual homes, a parking lot, and ancillary buildings. Then came funding delays caused by ballooning construction costs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The site went idle for well over a year.

More recently, affordable housing specialists Rea Ventures closed on development financing with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to build 42 units of affordable housing on site. That allowed the broader project to proceed, too, and construction now covers the block-sized site.

Rea Ventures is developing The Lodge’s separate residential component, called The Abbington at Ormewood Park. Across the site, plans call for the new four-story structure and two smaller buildings to include a mix of studios up to three-bedroom rentals.

For 30 years, rents will be restricted to no more than 30 percent of income for those making between 30 percent and 80 percent of area median income. Across the project, developers are aiming for 60 percent AMI on average for residents to ensure a mix of incomes, officials have previously told Urbanize Atlanta.

That means the largest units, the three-bedroom options, are expected to rent from between $583 and $1,500, per the development team. Funding from the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, Invest Atlanta, and Partners for Home is helping make the project financially feasible.

Commercial and office spaces at The Lodge, meanwhile, are being developed by a joint venture between Clark Property R+D, King Properties, Porch & Square, and RAD Group.

Project officials said in January The Lodge’s 33,000 square feet of office, retail, restaurant, and event space was 67 percent pre-leased via King Properties. No tenant announcements have been made, despite repeated, nagging requests for more information.

More than half of that commercial space will consist of adaptive-reuse of the existing Masonic Lodge and a historic house onsite—which is expected to translate to quicker construction timelines. Officials said in January the commercial component would begin construction in late spring, with a goal finishing by the end of 2024.  

The project’s name pays homage to a former Masonic Lodge on Moreland Avenue that’s been vacant for years but remains structurally sound, developers have said. It was built in 1947 and used as a Masonic Grand Lodge upstairs with a Kroger at street level.

Swing up to the gallery for more context and updated construction photos.

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