The Atlanta Historical Society voted Monday to move forward with selling land behind the Margaret Mitchell House to Jamestown Properties, but opponents of the deal say the tourist attraction will suffer.

The sale means the surface parking lot and a former bank building will be redeveloped, and possibly 650 parking spaces will be built underground.

Ben Dashwood/AP file (ENLARGE)

A parking lot and a former bank building behind the Margaret Mitchell House (seen here) are slated for redevelopment.

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Critics of the transaction contend selling the property will hinder growth of the Midtown attraction.

"If you sell that land you marginalize the Margaret Mitchell House," Mary Rose Taylor, former executive director of the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum, told the Historical Society trustees.

But sale supporters said the deal will enliven the area and provide money for an endowment and a capital campaign to build a new visitors center.

Jamestown, which owns the 999 Peachtree office building across the street from the Margaret Mitchell House, will pay at least $7 million for the 0.82 acre of land.

Dewberry Capital provided an alternative $8 million proposal that would have given the Historical Society a three-year window to buy back the property.

"We analyzed both deals and just felt Jamestown is in the best interest of the organization," said board Chairwoman Cathy Manning. The Historical Society and Jamestown will negotiate details, such as what will be built, before it is finalized, Manning said.

"Anything that would be done over there should be architecturally consistent and fit into the fabric of the neighborhood," Matt Bronfman, Jamestown's chief operations officer, recently said. "You want to do something that really activates the Margaret Mitchell House and embellishes it."

The building at Peachtree and 10th streets, where Mitchell wrote most of the famous novel "Gone With the Wind" in apartment No. 1, won't be changed.

The Historical Society took over the Margaret Mitchell property in 2004. At the time, the Margaret Mitchell board thought the Historical Society would preserve the property and try to raise money for an endowment, but that didn't happen, sale opponents say. "Over a period of 3 1/2 years every [fund-raising] proposal has been thwarted," Taylor told the trustees.

Barbara Howell, another opponent of the deal, said the issue has divided the Historical Society and the Board of Counselors of the Margaret Mitchell House.

"These two really great historical institutions are like this with each other," Howell said, pushing two fists together.