A prized downtown Atlanta lot that’s now the home to an abandoned hotel and a rental car facility will be transformed into a new student housing complex.

Bull Realty said Wednesday it brokered the $7.9 million sale of the 1.5 acre site at 70 John Wesley Dobbs Avenue to an affiliate of Ambling University Development Group.

The developers plan two phases that would create hundreds of new student apartments down the road from where Georgia State University plans to build new business and law schools.

The first part would renovate the old Ramada Hotel on the site into a 138-unit complex that would open in summer 2013. A new tower featuring 108 additional units would open in summer 2014, along with a new parking deck.

Michael Bull, the president of the realty firm, said the student housing market is an increasingly attractive sector that’s weathered the economic downturn.