A five-story building is being built in downtown Gainesville on top of a parking lot.
The project will cost $14.25-million for the roughly 40,000-square-foot building and will be at the lot between YellowFin and Centro Gainesville Eatery on Bradford Street.
“It will provide some additional office spaces on the square, which currently is pretty limited, which would allow people to work and utilize the square area during the day,” President of Capstone Property Group Jonathan Collins said.
Capstone is heading the project and Collins said that the top floor will be home to their office.
Collins also added that the first floor will be home to “high-end” steakhouse Char STK while floors two through four will be office spaces that are not disclosed as of this time.
“The addition of a high-end steakhouse is certainly a restaurant offering that Gainesville doesn’t currently have,” Collins said. “So I think that would provide something different for the community as well.”
Collins also said that the current lot being built on top of will be used by the businesses going into the development.
The property will look to be partially tax allocation district (TAD) funded for the cost. The purpose of TADs are to redevelop and revitalize areas using public funds to offset the costs of a project.
Once the assessed value of that property goes up after revitalization, that money gets paid back
Collins said there are items within their budget that qualify for TAD improvement.
“We are adding elements that qualify for TAD, which is making the building have a historic feel so it fits within the area there at Bradford,” Collins said.
He added that to accommodate the building fitting in, extra costs are associated.
The building will be located at 126 Bradford St. NE which is currently a 0.2 acre asphalt lot built in 1941 according to the Hall County Tax Assessor’s website.
Collins added that Ecker Construction, a commercial general contractor based out of Buford, will be contracted to get to work on the development.
“We plan to start in the next few weeks,” Collins said. “From there, it would take roughly 12 months to construct.”
