Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz says he is positive the Georgia Square Mall redevelopment plan will be approved

Elizabeth Hunter

Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz defends the Georgia Square Mall redevelopment plan at the University of Georgia at 9 a.m. on Feb. 24. Girtz is hopeful that the plan will pass at the commission meeting on March 7. (Photo/Elizabeth Hunter)

Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz announced that he feels confident that the local government will approve the Georgia Square Mall redevelopment plan on March 7.

The Georgia Square Mall redevelopment has been a hot topic in Athens recently and was postponed for the second time at the commission meeting on Feb. 21. However, on Feb. 24, at a news conference held at the University of Georgia, Mayor Girtz insisted that he was positive that the plan would pass at the next meeting. 

The three governing bodies that must vote to approve this redevelopment plan are Athens-Clarke County commission, Clarke County School District Board of Education and the Mall Area Redevelopment Committee. Approval would lead to the demolishing of as much as 63% of the existing mall. 

Seventy-five acres would be opened up for new affordable housing units, retail units, a transit station and a green space with walking and biking trails. Close to 1,200 housing units would be available, but only 10% of those units will be affordable for the median income family. 

Mayor Girtz cited 15 acres at the end of Boulevard, 20 acres on Barnett Shoals Road and 7 acres off Vine Street as areas where the local government plans to convert that land into workforce housing. Girtz said he believes that the mall redevelopment plan presents the opportunity to start to combat the current housing crisis. 

“No one project is going to get you everything you need in any regard around housing, around youth development needs, around environmental need and so we’re having to work overtime as a local government,” said Girtz. “We take this seriously that we’re going to be bringing many, many, many housing opportunities to the table.” 

The New York Times analyzed federal data on how housing availability has changed in U.S. urban areas, and Athens was at the top of the list. Athens’ housing moved from a 12% surplus of housing units in 2012 to a 2.4% deficit in 2019. 

The redevelopment plan will cost approximately $426 million. In 2021, the ACC commission created a tax allocation district around the mall to stimulate redevelopment. Therefore, $189 million of that $426 million would come from the next 30 years of property tax revenue from the redeveloped site. 

Girtz announced that he will be hosting a public input session on Thursday, March 2 to keep this process and decision as transparent as possible.

Why I Wrote the Story:

Due to the housing crisis currently happening in Athens, this story about a plan to redevelop the old mall and turn it into a housing development is extremely important to the community. This story taught me how to write about a broad issue and how to write based off of information learned in a news conference.

UGA student starts nonprofit to help Athens homeless community

Elizabeth Hunter

Ansley Fraundorf, a sophomore at the University of Georgia, is the president and creator of the Health for Homeless nonprofit organization. Fraundorf is on the way to her research lab. She studies an inner-membrane protein that’s drug resistant to chemotherapy. (photo/Elizabeth Hunter)

Ansley Fraundorf’s knee bounces as she waits for people to fill the empty seats. It’s three minutes until the meeting is supposed to start, and only two members have arrived. She makes an announcement that she will delay the meeting a few more minutes to allow people to get there. At 6:03 p.m. a huge group of students show up. 

It’s a gorgeous spring day at the beginning of April, and the 5-foot-6 sophomore has a presentation on the projector ready to tell everyone her mission. Fraundorf rises from her chair and introduces herself as the president and creator of the Health For Homeless nonprofit organization. 

Fraundorf founded the student-run organization in February to provide over-the-counter medication, basic healthcare and support to the Athens homeless community. Fraundorf says first aid kits and over-the-counter medications will be given to the local homeless shelters to be administered. Health for Homeless will purchase the over-the-counter medications and first aid supplies with the money raised from fundraisers and donations. 

Fraundorf says that as the organization grows she hopes to enlist volunteer nurses and doctors to do “triage work” once a week for homeless or lower income individuals that have a more serious injury.

Athens-Clarke County’s homeless population has continued to grow rapidly since 2014. According to the 2022 Athens-Clarke County Housing Inventory Count & Point-in-Time Count Report, unsheltered homelessness is the highest reported since 2017. 

The Athens Homeless Coalition was charged in 2021 with creating a five-year strategic plan to address homelessness in Athens-Clarke County. The first step in this plan was to set up and operate a sanctioned homeless encampment. In the first five months, the encampment recorded that 160 people used the camp and 13%, or roughly 20 people went into permanent housing. Another 6%, or roughly 10 people, went into a treatment program. 

The encampment offers meals, water, electricity and mental health services, but is in constant need of basic medical supplies. The supplies that the Health for Homeless organization will collect and give to the local homeless shelters will help quench those needs.  

Fraundorf was born in Greenville, South Carolina, but grew up in Atlanta, a place she recalls as always having a huge homeless population. With both of her parents being accountants, she was bred to do business, but has found medicine to be her calling. She now studies biochemistry and molecular biology and biomedical physiology at the University of Georgia.

“Working at a retail pharmacy was kind of where this started,” said Fraundorf. “A lot of people coming to pick up prescriptions could not afford their prescriptions… I would recommend something over-the-counter, and they couldn’t afford that either.”

After witnessing the homelessness issues in Atlanta and Athens, Fraundorf said she recognized the importance of getting people the resources they need in terms of healthcare. Her voice gets louder as she explains how the U.S. has the resources, but that those resources aren’t given to people of lower status. 

“One of the hardest things that I had to do was put myself in an uncomfortable position,” said Fraundorf. “Why this organization was created is there was a need, there was something that needed to be started, and that was more important than me being comfortable.”

Fraundorf leads a Health for Homeless meeting in the Zell B. Miller Learning Center. She explains the next steps the organization will be taking to plan fundraisers and get donors. (Photo/Elizabeth Hunter)

Fraundorf reached out to Natalie Ventura, a sophomore biomedical physiology major at UGA, for her help in getting Health for Homeless up and running. 

Fraundorf said it was a long process of sending messages in multiple Groupme chats and individually messaging people, but Health for Homeless now has a full executive board and over 50 members. 

“I just think she’s the perfect person to be a leader,” said Natalie Ventura, secretary for the Health for Homeless organization. “She’s full of ambition. She’s always on track. She does what she has to do.”

As Fraundorf rolls her drink in her hand and looks off toward the wall, she says that her dream for the Health for Homeless organization is to see it go beyond her four years in Athens. Even if the organization doesn’t grow, she just wants it to continue. 

Why I Wrote the Story:

The Athens area has one of the highest homeless populations in the state of Georgia. The Athens-Clarke County government has set up a plan to try and combat the homelessness issue, but nonprofits like Health for Homeless, will greatly aid their efforts. While writing this story, I learned how to do in-depth interviews and tie what I found in the interview back to a bigger issue in the community.