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ON-CAMPUS HOUSING January/February 2017 StudentHousingBusiness.com 52 In January 2017, Georgia State University and a private development team consisting of Carter, Oakwood Development and Healey Weatherholtz Properties closed on the $30 million sale of Turner Field and surround- ing areas in downtown Atlanta. Immediate plans will reconfigure the baseball field into a football stadium for the Georgia State Panthers. Eventually, a total of 68 acres will be transformed into main streets with restaurants, retail and a large portion dedicated to office space to entice corporate relocations. and very difficult for you to decide that you can belong to that place. If you can't be transparent, you still have to find a way to present that idea, perhaps through digital media or visual graphics." A Commuter Campus Finds Home Base Georgia State University (GSU) is a classic example of a university that is fragmented and challenged in its present design when it comes to fostering opportunities to build relationships. But that is changing this year. When the Atlanta Braves com- pleted their final season at Turner Field in 2016, GSU swooped in with designs to transition the stadium, including 68 acres surrounding it, into a home base for the university. In January 2017, Georgia State University and a private develop- ment team consisting of Carter, Oakwood Development and Heal- ey Weatherholtz Properties closed on the $30 million sale of Turner Field and surrounding areas. Immediate plans for the site will focus on reconfiguring the baseball field into a football stadium for the Georgia State Panthers, who have until now been sharing the Geor- gia Dome with the Atlanta Falcons. Next door to the football stadium, which the university hopes to be ready for the 2017 season, GSU plans to build an approximately 1,500-seat baseball field on the site where Hank Aaron hit his historic home run that broke Babe Ruth's record. Georgia State is growing and wants to give a shot in the arm to its athletics program. In 2015, approxi- mately 32,000 graduate and under- graduate students were enrolled at Georgia State. And in January 2016, GSU consolidated with Georgia Perimeter college. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the post- consolidation enrollment pushes the number to more than 50,000, the largest student body in Georgia. Carter will control 35 acres of the 68-acre site and plans to build a mixed-use neighborhood that will support the university as well as the surrounding neighborhoods of Summerhill, Peoplestown, Pitts- burgh and Mechanicsville. A large piece of this property is currently occupied by Turner Field parking lots. To kick it off, Carter has acquired eight buildings on Georgia Avenue that will be restored in 2017 to become retail and restaurants. They will also construct an 850-bed stu- dent housing community, located on a parcel owned by GSU, which Carter is ground leasing the land for 99 years. Carter will also devel- op 200 market rate apartments on its own section of land. In the future, Carter is planning to develop this area with the intent to attract corporate relocations. A major driver of the entire proj- ect was a Livable Centers Initia- tive (LCI) study of the Turner Field neighborhoods. LCI is a joint plan- ning effort of the City of Atlanta and Invest Atlanta. The study is funded with Federal Highway funding through the Atlanta Regional Com- mission (ARC) as well as the City of Atlanta, Invest Atlanta and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The purpose of the study was to align the objectives of multiple stakeholders, including GSU and surrounding neighbors. "The LCI study generated three conceptual plans of what the future could look like on that site," says Carter Senior Vice President David Nelson. "Ulti- mately, our development will be pulling pieces and parts from that. GSU, the neighborhood and private development are all aligned and wanting the same thing." One of the most important out- comes of this development is the creation of a campus center for GSU, which has traditionally been a commuter school. Driving through downtown Atlanta, it is difficult to discern where the cam- pus begins and ends, and which buildings belong to it. The entrance to the campus is somewhat hidden, behind a city park. "This is a downtown campus that hasn't ever had a main street," Nelson says. "It hasn't had those special places alumni could come visit and show their children. Now, this site will be connected to the university forever. Campus life will be driven from here. And, as one of the largest schools in the state, they have the wind at their backs to make a big run from an athletics perspective." Transportation is a major piece of this development as most class- room space is about a three-min- ute shuttle ride from the Turner Field site — which sits on the edge of downtown — into the core GSU area. Shuttles already oper- ate between Turner Field parking lots and the main GSU campus, so the city is making preparations to improve access to the new and improved mixed-use neighborhood to the rest of the city through light rails and extensions of MARTA, the city's transit system of buses and trains. In November, the city passed a T-SPLOST and MARTA referen- dum bill that would provide tax revenue to extend MARTA's char- ter. This will improve The BeltLine, the city's walking/biking trail, as well as extend MARTA buses and trains. Route plans haven't been finalized, but extensions into the new district are likely. "This opportunity has taken three years of planning," Nelson says. "The vision for the neighborhood is why we're working with GSU and why GSU is working with us. It's why GSU isn't just buying 68 acres and planning on it being all theirs. They really wanted someone to come in and create a 'there' for their campus. So that when students come home, they will be drawn to an active vibrant main street." SHB