RBH’s Atlanta Teachers Village Funded With $370M Bond

RBH Group’s third “Teachers Village” income-restricted development with a massive retail component is moving forward in Atlanta, after the Development Authority of Fulton County approved a $370 million bond to fund it.

The New Jersey-based developer plans to build a 34-story tower at 98 Cone Street in downtown Atlanta with 430 apartments, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The funding comes to $860,500 per unit. The development will also include 458,000 square feet of retail space and 206 parking spaces. RBH is under contract to buy the quarter-acre property; the seller’s identity wasn’t reported.

The firm plans studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments, with 163 of them — about 38 percent of units — affordable for people making less than 120 percent of the area median income. That would be $90,360 for an individual or $129,000 for a household of four. Forty apartments — less than 10 percent of units — would be reserved for those making 80 percent of the area median income, which would be $60,240 for a single person or $86,000 for a household of four.

All of those would be reserved for teachers. The lowest-paid teachers in Atlanta Public Schools make $62,000 to $84,000, depending on what level of degrees they have. The highest-paid make $90,000 to $127,000.

The remaining 227 units would be for seniors, and they won’t be income restricted, but they’ll be priced about 15 percent below market rate.

This project will replace a parking structure near Centennial Olympic Park.

“It’s going to be the largest middle-income housing project of its kind that we know of in the country,” RBH CEO Ron Beit said. “To be in the heart of downtown as close as possible to two main MARTA lines in order for our teachers to be able to access as many schools as possible was very deliberate and intentional.”

Besides the bond funding, the project could also receive low-income housing tax credits and $30 million in public financing incentives through Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm. The project had been expected to cost just $176 million when it was pitched back in 2021.

The development would be RBH’s third Teachers Village, following similar developments in Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut, which were both delivered before 2019.

Construction on the Atlanta development is expected to start later this year and take about a year to build.

Other transformative projects in downtown Atlanta include the $5 billion Centennial Yards redevelopment and the upcoming conversion of 2 Peachtree into the city’s tallest residential building.

—Rachel Stone