‘Affordable’ student housing is 16 floors and climbing downtown

In about a year, Georgia State University students will have another (swanky) option for on-campus living at the school’s downtown campus.

Developed by South City Partners on the corner of Piedmont and John Wesley Dobbs avenues, “The Mix” seeks to offer 26 stories of relatively highbrow living in the heart of GSU’s main location.

With 685 beds and 8,200 square feet of retail, the $90 million project is primed to be move-in-ready by August next year, just in time for GSU’s next fall semester, according to Will Casaday, South City Partners’s vice president of development.

Casaday told Curbed Atlanta some students have already signed leases for next year, and those Panthers are in for a lavish lifestyle. Rudimentary dorms, these are not.

In addition to fully furnished one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom options—each complete with a washer and dryer and a 48-inch flat-screen TV—The Mix will also flaunt a rooftop lounge and heated pool, recording studio, and dog spa, among many other amenities not found in standard student housing.

The Mix

Sean Keenan, Curbed Atlanta

Casaday stressed that rents, billed last year as “affordable,” are priced competitively against some of the other on- or near-campus offerings in the area.

One-bedrooms are the priciest, tentatively valued between $1,400 and $1,460 per month, with costs dropping based on the amount of roommates students are willing to have.

Four-bedroom offerings start at $925 and top out at $1,015, per student renter.

A few blocks away, on Edgewood Avenue, the newish student housing complex 200 Edgewood charges $1,049 for a two-bedroom, compared to The Mix’s $1,150 starting price.

“As compared to other apartment rents in Atlanta, especially for the quality of product we’ll be delivering, our rents are certainly more manageable for students,” says Casaday.

Casaday adds that The Mix is helping GSU’s campus become more prominent against the backdrop of the downtown cityscape.

“This project will help shape the Piedmont [Avenue] corridor overall, which has become the primary housing corridor for GSU,” he says. “This will continue to bolster GSU’s efforts to better define their ‘campus’ in the midst of an urban environment.”