After a seven year effort of design and analysis with public and private entities, the first building of the mixed use master plan for the historic Civic Center site is in design and going through permitting.  Civic Center R1 Senior, as it is currently named, is a 100% affordable senior housing project with 148 units, located on Pine Street on the northeast corner of the site.

While much of the site is currently covered in empty parking lots, the Civic Center site is anchored by the 1968 Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center performing arts center and exhibition hall.  GVSA began designing a mixed use master plan for the site in 2016.  When Atlanta Housing purchased the site in 2017, GVSA was enlisted to help pull together an RFP for the site and perform feasibility studies on the reuse of the Performing Arts Center coupled with existing conditions analysis.  When Civic Center Partners was awarded the project in 2022, the mixed use master plan was honed in on with office, museum, retail, performance, educational, and residential programming, including over 1,500 total new residential units with 590 of those units dedicated to affordable/workforce housing.

R1 Senior will deliver the first 148 units of the 1,507 mixed income units spread across the master plan.  All 148 units being developed in the R1 Senior phase will be dedicated to low income seniors making 50% AMI or less.  The ground level boasts several amenities for the residents including a community room, arts and crafts room, fitness room, computer stations, mail lobby, and leasing and support offices, as well as a 1,700 SF café open to the public, and BBQ stations and exterior gathering areas on the private residential terrace overlooking the heavily treed multi-family neighboring property to the east.  GVSA has teamed up with Southface Institute to ensure that R1 Senior not only provides an affordable housing option for the City’s seniors, but provides energy efficient and sustainable design.  The project will have Earthcraft certification, Energy Star rating, Zero Energy Ready Homes certification, and be part of the larger LEED for Neighborhood Development certification of the master site.