An Atlanta-based developer is the latest company to choose the growing North Georgia city as the site for its latest multi-family build at Midland Gainesville.
The 214 unit building will sit on a nearly five-acre lot in an area already booming with new development.
Gainesville community and economic development director Rusty Ligon said the planned site will address the critical shortfall pinpointed in the city's "downtown master plan."
"One of the greatest needs that people identified was the need for more residential [units] in and around downtown," Ligon said. "They loved everything that was going on downtown, but the one thing that was missing was a place to live."
Ligon explained that when put together with phases one and two of Solis and the development on the site of the First National Bank, the number of residential units in the downtown area will be around 750.
Solis's phase one project represents 220 residential units and 10,000 square feet of retail space. The planned phase two of the project on the old Hall County jail site will be slightly smaller with 180 residential units and 5,000 square feet of retail space. The planned development at the old First National Bank will add 143 residential spaces, and a planned Courtyard Marriott will bring 140 hotel units. Not to mention all of the mixed-use space from Rennasiance Gainesville.
"We expect to begin site work and some limited amount of demolition within the next two weeks, and then hope to deliver our first units in Q1 of 2024," William Norris, principal and found of McNeal Development, told AccessWDUN. "I was really drawn to the economic story in Gainesville the region and the city itself has just seen outsized growth, and I liked what the city had done with the Midtown Greenway."
To complete the project, McNeal development will work alongside Atlanta-based real estate and construction company, The Macallan Group. Norris said this is McNeal's first development in the area.
Both Norris and Ligon believe the new developments will be positive for the entire Gainesville community. They feel it will attract new businesses to the area.
"So even if you're not living in one of these residential developments, it's still going to draw other things that I think a lot of different people will utilize," Ligon said.
