The future of Underground Atlanta has been a hot topic in the metro real estate community, and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed offered up a glimpse this week of what could happen to the struggling downtown shopping mall.
Reed told 11Alive reporter Doug Richards that the redevelopment of Underground will be a mix of uses, including high-end housing. Retail will likely remain in the lower levels of the tiered mall, the mayor said, but having residents above the complex will make it less dependent on tourists.
“You’re going have to go vertical and really turn Underground into some people’s living room, so what I think you (are) going to see with the new development is to have some vertical construction more residential,” Reed said in the interview.
The Atlanta City Council approved legislation in March to buy out the $8.8 million rights of CV Underground, the real estate company that manages the site. This summer, the city issued a request for proposals from the development community, which allowed leaders to test the waters for selling the site and what future uses might be.
The mayor has said he envisions a redevelopment similar to Ponce City Market. A private developer is remaking the former massive Sears warehouse and City Hall East into apartments, offices and shops. Underground has gone through multiple iterations, but it is best known as a hub for Atlanta nightlife beginning in the late 1960s.
A late 1980s rebirth into a tourist attraction and shopping mall fizzled out, and the project has been a drain on the city’s finances. Reed wants to sell the property to help clear space in the city’s budget to fund debt service on a potential infrastructure bond referendum that could go before voters next year.
Reed told the station a plan for redevelopment — possibly valued at $100 million — could come before the end of the year.
Real estate has been a major focus for Reed this year, including the redevelopment of Fort McPherson into a possible Tyler Perry film studio, a possible sale of the civic center, among other projects.
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