Beating the Bulldozer: Georgia State holds plans to demolish the Bell Building

 

When a community bands together, it can do almost anything – including halting demolition plans for a building located in the center of Downtown Atlanta that was erected in the 1920’s.

In August this year, Atlanta citizens went into a frenzy after learning of Georgia State’s plan to raze the Bell Building located off 25 Auburn Ave., tucked neatly beside the university’s T-Deck. The university wanted to build a 74-space parking lot. Darin Givens, author of the soon-to-be-retired ATLUrbanist blog, created a petition to “Save the Bell Building” that now boasts more than 2,000 signatures. Atlanta City Councilmember Kwanza Hall also introduced legislation during the Sept. 9 City Council meeting to protect the building by deeming it a historic structure.

“I haven’t seen the reports, but [the Bell building] could be [saved],” Hall said. “I have seen much worse buildings get preserved. It could be put to an adaptive reuse.”

After a strong reaction from the community, Georgia State is re-evaluating its original plan.

Re-assessing the Bell building

Hall, sponsor of Resolution 15-R-4047 to make the Bell building a historic site, said Becker and Commissioner of Planning and Community Development Tim Keane are working to assess the building’s value. Hall said he is an advocate of preserving historic buildings in the city as he believes it adds character.

However, his resolution is currently on hold. He said he would prefer for Georgia State’s administration to address the issue because “it is their shop,” and the university is following through on its promise.

“Georgia State told me they don’t plan to do any type of demolition and want to do an assessment of the building right now,” he said. “So how it got to be a demolition conversation? I am not sure.”

Although the Fulton County Board of Assessors has appraised the Bell Building’s value at zero from 2013 to 2015, the land and building are valued at $1,643,600.

Ramesh Vakamudi, assistant vice president for Georgia State’s Facilities Management Service, said he began the process a couple weeks ago of screening third party, independent consultants for possible hire to do an independent review of the building.

Walter Massey, president of Georgia State Foundation and vice president of Development, confirmed the outside architect would be weighing the cost of “maintaining and refurbishing the existing building.”

“We’re still finalizing the terms and conditions of the contract,” Vakamudi said. “Once we have signed an agreement we can share that information.”

Vakamudi said a contract should be inked within the next week or two.

Hall said he is pleased with Georgia State’s initiative to look at alternate plans for the Bell Building.

“I am encouraged by the willingness of Georgia State under Dr. Becker’s leadership to also look at the building through a perspective of what could be done with it as it is,” he said.

He also said he believes Keane’s effort to lead the assessment will result in a “win, win, win for everyone involved.”

While the community has succeeded in deviating the building’s impending doom, plans to bulldoze the constructed dwelling have been in the works since 2014.

The original plan

Massey said Sasaki Associates, an architectural company that updated Georgia State’s Master Plan in 2012, had different suggestions for what type of learning structure should be built.

“One of the things that they pointed out in terms of where there was a need was in the area of wet labs for undergraduate research – biology, chemistry, things like that,” he said. “[So] the first thought that came to mind was to satisfy that need.”

In 2013 Georgia State initiated a plan to “document its historic resources,” according to the Georgia State University Campus Historic Preservation Plan. The document was completed June 6, 2014.

Late last year, Georgia State submitted a final proposal to the Woodruff Foundation for a $22.7 million grant dated Sep. 2. Georgia State was awarded the banknote.

Outlined in the proposal, the lion’s share of the cash was intended to build a multi-media center for film and journalism students. However, $3.5 million was designated to fund the wrecking to the Bell building.

Givens said he was surprised to learn the Woodruff Foundation accepted the proposal.

“It’s very strange because the Woodruff Foundation – from what I’ve seen on their website – is they’ve funded projects to restore buildings,” he said. “It’s a little concerning that a light wouldn’t have gone off somewhere saying ‘ding ding, why are we funding the demolition of a building.’”

The Woodruff Foundation denied response saying it is their general policy to not comment publicly.

Attached to the final proposal is a letter of support from Central Atlanta Progress (CAP), “a private non-profit community development organization” who Georgia State President Mark Becker sits as an executive committee on the board. The letter was signed by CAP’s president A.J. Robinson on Aug. 29, 2014.

After reaching out multiple times, a spokesperson for Robinson said he denied to comment on this matter.

In the bid for the grant, the Bell site was initially planned to be transformed into a 25,000 sq. ft. park.

Massey said numerous phone calls were held hashing out the final details regarding the plans for the Bell Building.

Massey said there was no physical updated version of the proposal, because they didn’t rewrite it. They just “redesigned it into a parking lot.” He said the garage was only meant to be interim use of the space.

“The more we talked among ourselves the more we went ‘if we put in green space we’ll never be able to get it back, so let’s put in a parking lot,” he said. “Because we always knew that ultimately it was going to be another academic building.”

In an earlier interview held late August, Becker said “we haven’t finalized what we’re going to do there, but we’re evaluating our options.”