Athens Flatts

Athens Flatts [sic] is a condominium renovation project located on the northwest corner of 2nd Avenue North and 23rd Street in Downtown Birmingham. The 77,000 square-foot, four-story Athens Building, which was originally constructed in the 1960s, was stripped down to its steel frame for the $7.5 million conversion into 36 residential units ranging from 850 to over 2,000 square feet.

41 parking spaces are planned for the ground floor and the lot across 23rd street is also owned by the developer. Many of the units will feature large private balconies. A few selected features of the original building, such as the sign, the tile walls and terrazzo floor of the lobby and the sea-foam green elevator doors may remain in the final project.

The architect for the renovations is Rob Walker Architects. The contractor is Jones Williams Construction. The developer is Cityscape Development Group, headed by Adam Cohen. Cohen purchased the vacant building from the YWCA for $650,000. Completion is scheduled for fall 2006 with initial sales prices ranging from $130,000 to $350,000.

Previously-reported costs have ranged from $8 to $9 million while the number of units has ranged from 33 to 37 with between 1/3 and 1/2 of them reported to have been pre-sold by Ingram and Associates.

References

• "$7.5M Athens condo conversion moves forward" (June 12, 2006) Birmingham Business Journal.
• Tomberlin, Michael. "Thinking inside the box: Developers envision transformation of stark downtown structure." Birmingham News.
• Wilkinson, Kaija "$8M rebuild of the Athens: 33 condos."(October 3, 2005) Birmingham Business Journal.