Bank of America, Developer Create Condos on Abandoned Junkyard

The project represented the first voluntary clean up under the Georgia Brownfields Clean Up Act and received the US Environmental Protection Agency Regional Brownfield Award in March 2004. Demolition revealed the residue of the site's history in remaining petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents and heavy metals, the developer says.

Bank of America Community Development Banking provided $7.2 million in construction lending and $2.1 million in equity to finance the project. Turner Associates were the architects. JM Wilkerson was the general contractor. Coldwell Banker is providing realty services on the sale of the condos.

Mtamanika Youngblood, board chair and former president of the Historic District Development Corp., calls Bank of America "a great partner in helping us transform a neighborhood eyesore into another wonderful place to live and work in the Historic District." Youngblood says the project "brings back economic vitality back to this historic and valuable neighborhood."

Gene Godbold, president, Bank of America Georgia, says the project "brings one of the most exciting designs for urban living in the entire city to the Historic District." He says the site of the lofts was an environmental challenge. It was an automobile service station from 1932 to the 1950s; a dry cleaning business in the 1960s and 1970s; and a scrap metal yard until it was abandoned in the late 1990s.

Doug Woodruff, president, Bank of America Community Development Banking, says over the past four years Bank of America has provided about $200 million in lending and more than $175 million in equity to create 10,000 units of affordable housing in the Atlanta area.

"Dynamic Metals provides yet another demonstration of the way Bank of America works to build the economic strength of the neighborhoods where our customers, associates and shareholders live and work," Woodruff says.