America’s First Public Housing Projects are Converted to Mixed-Income Family Housing: Centennial Place Apartments (Phase IV), Scholars Landing (Phase III)

We’re working on three different construction projects right now at LDG Consulting and here’s two of them we’d like to highlight to you this month – both of which are part of American history as being one of the United States’ first public housing projects. Public housing first came to America as a part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. Centennial Place was formerly known as Techwood Homes, which was dedicated by FDR. Scholars Landing was formerly known as University Homes. Both of these projects are being developed by Integral – a company which LDG Consulting’s founder, Alrich Lynch, worked for for half a decade, just after the Atlanta Olympics days. He served as a development and program manager for Integral. The same general contractor who worked on Mercy Park, another LDG Consulting project, was now also working on Scholars Landing and highly recommended that LDG Consulting be brought on to provide assistance with Scholars Landing.

Image Credit: aprio.com

Techwood Homes was originally opened in 1936 and was the first of fifty-two housing projects constructed in the US, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The original intention of these homes was to eliminate the slums that Atlanta’s poorest had been living in. It was demolished just before the Olympics came to Atlanta in the summer of 1996 and was remade into a mixed-use area called Centennial Place.

Phase IV of Centennial Place is undergoing a rehabilitation effort. The original phase was constructed nearly two decades ago. Centennial Place is a five-phase project totaling over $200 million. The community is now home to both low-income and moderately affluent residents alike. The development sports tree-lined streets, pools, playgrounds, an early learning center called Sheltering Arms and even an elementary school, Centennial Academy (Atlanta’s first conversion charter school).²

Centennial Place was the first HOPE VI Development in the United States (a federal program under the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)) and is slated for substantial completion by late December 2019.

PROJECT TYPE: Family Housing
NO. of UNITS: 195
ARCHITECT: Geheber Lewis Associates
CIVIL ENGINEER: Lancaster & Associates
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Empire Corporation of Tennessee

IMAGE CREDIT: Maria Saporta, SaportaReport.com

ABOUT SCHOLARS LANDING (Phase III)

Scholars Landing is an 18-acre family and senior housing project. We started working on Phase 3 in November last year and it has a substantial completion date of December 2019. The groundbreaking for this phase of the project was held Nov. 2 of 2018.

Located right next to the AUC (Atlanta University Center), Scholars Landing is being built on the site formerly known as University Homes – a public housing project originally built in 1937. Nearly 80% of the Scholars Landing units are reserved for low-income and working class residents.¹ Scholars Landing is a part of the Choice Neighborhoods investments which aligns with Invest Atlanta’s revitalization development approach.¹Adjacent to the Phase 3 are the Oasis and Veranda projects – built for seniors.