Student Housing Boom Changing Face of Downtown Athens
Monday, June 22nd, 2015
No stranger to metamorphosis, downtown Athens is in the midst of another cycle of change, this one fueled by a proliferation of student housing that is beginning, if slowly, to boost the downtown economy.
For many years a traditional downtown retail center, hosting major department stores, movie theaters, car dealerships and other local businesses, downtown Athens began to change in the 1980s as major department stores left for the then-new Georgia Square mall, situated alongside what was a far less crowded Atlanta Highway.
