Um, their locker room, kitchen and operators toilets in the rear of the first floor. And then on the second [00:04:00] floor, there were 9,600 line a and B switchboards and on the third floor, another 9,600 switchboards. So between the second and third floor, they had over 13,000 telephones. The fifth floor was supposed to be devoted entirely to a long distance operating room.

Um, even though it was never built and the sixth floor was supposed to be for the long distance terminal room. So the building also contained the Ivy switchboard, the training school, a branch of the local commercial office and the revenue supervisor's office. Um, And then also throughout its time, the company did a lot to try and boost employee morale.

Um, so they would do things like they established a library in the building and they would throw luncheons and parties for the operators and things like that. Just to keep everybody having a good time, uh, within the company.

Kaila: [00:05:07] Yeah. And an interesting fact about the library was that it was actually established to be an official branch of the, um, the main library at the time, which was like the Carnegie library, which is no longer standing. But, um, it, to me is pretty interesting that, and that they would do things like that to really kind of create this, um, uh, environment that, where they really tried to support the switchboard operators.

So then in 1919, because of course the company was still growing pretty except, um, exponentially Southern bell announced their plans to build an automated exchange in either 1921 or 1922. They hadn't established the, uh, specific timeline at that point, but they wanted to. Um, use some new technology called, uh, panel switching, which would replace the, um, the greeting that everyone was at the time used to hearing from, uh, one of the operators, um, to a dial tone, which is what we're all now familiar with, like as the standard.

So then in 1922, Um, the addition to the building, uh, at 27 Auburn Avenue was built and this exchange was called, uh, the Walnut exchange. So we have a little clearer idea of who the architect was for this building. It was P. Thornton, uh, Mayre or Mayre I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce it. And at the time he.

Um, was the official architect of Southern bell. So he, um, designed quite a few buildings for them and the costs that they estimated was $700,000. So it was quite a step up from what was already there in both size and costs. So. The building itself was built to the East of the Ivy building. And it's shaped like an L to wrap around the rear of the Ivy building.

And this create created a lightwell that is in the center of the combined building. Um, something interesting about the building is to how it was constructed, um, because. While they were, um, while they started construction and they were, um, digging for underpinning foundations at the rear of the Ivy building, they broke through the kind of solid crust as they were trying to, uh, uh, create a foundation for the basement.

And they broke through this crust into a soft mud that they at the time described as the consistency of bread pudding. And this was over 40 feet deep. So there was kind of no way around this. So they had to use a kind of unusual method of kind of laying the foundation. Um, they had to use a, uh, pile driver to put down groups of concrete piles for the foundation, um, that would reach under this, uh, bread pudding like mud.

Um, and then sometime in the early days, nineties, the mug closed and was replaced by "El Azteca", a Mexican restaurant. So most of while these restaurants were in business, Most of the building was used as storage by the trust company, which is now SunTrust bank. So it wasn't really being actively used as like people weren't using it is what I mean.

Um, from 1997 to 2006, the building was pretty much just vacant. Um, and then in 2006, SunTrust sold the building to Georgia State University. Um, Georgia State had plans to demolish the building and put a parking lot on the site, um, because it would be cost-prohibitive to, um, sort of renovate and reuse the building.

And with there, the building has roof damage that would cost a lot of money. They. They say they simply don't have the money to fix it. So they were planning on demolishing it, but in 2015, um, the "save the bell" movement was created to stop Georgia State from tearing the building down. Um, now you can access the, save the bell website.

If you'd like to, um, you, you might be listening to this podcast on their website, um, and in. Later episodes, we will be talking about some ways that we can possibly, well, he preserved the bell building and suggesting other adaptive reuse plan or the space. And, and I think it's important to talk about here that, um, this building is a place where a lot of women entered the workforce.

The switchboard operators were primarily women. And this was at a time when it was not common for women to be a part of the workforce,

Kaila: [00:18:26] um, um, with, with the kind of community that. The company created because they knew the value of these operators. They, like we mentioned before, they, um, events like, um, lunches and, um, And various parties and dances from the, um, operators.

And I think, I remember seeing somewhere that they had a, a lunch where all the, the operators invited their mothers. So it was, it was really like, uh, a good place, um, you know, for, for these women to be working and an important place in terms of like, Um, kind of just the history and like the when you think about obviously how many women are in the workforce now, which is, um, obviously a lot more than back then, but you know, you think about places like this, and this is where you kind of started or you know, where women could get jobs and they really kind of formed this community where they were.

Uh, respected or, you know, they,

Asha: [00:19:53] they, they had the opportunity to have a really great job where they were, [00:20:00] you know, welcomed and respected him to the workforce, um, that, you know, in there weren't very many career opportunities for women at the time. Um, and I mean, even today, the. Um, the pandemic women were mo- statistically women lost significantly more jobs than men.

Ian Michael: [00:03:20] Sure. No, definitely. Um, I play a number of roles, um, with easements Atlanta. Um, I'll give a little background of what easements Atlanta is, and then I can speak more specifically to what I do with the organization. So Easments Atlanta Inc is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We were established in 1984, uh, through a preservation Alliance between, uh, the Atlanta Preservation Center, the Atlanta History Center, and the city of Atlanta, uh, specifically the Atlanta urban design commission and what they recognized was a need to permanently protect historic resources. And saw the opportunity of using preservation easements and the creation of a nonprofit that could assist in those efforts.

And so in 1984, um, easements, Atlanta, it was established by those three organizations. And today easements Atlanta is qualified as a nonprofit to accept a historic preservation, easement donations of certified historic and cultural properties, uh, within Metro Atlanta. And. Uh, to date, we have accepted, um, let me get my number, right.

43 historic properties across the city of Atlanta. Um, and we hold easements on a number of properties throughout the city. Really diverse number of holdings, um, from high rises in downtown, such as the Healey building, um, or the standard building and the Haas Howell building where Georgia state school of music is to, uh, former warehouses, such as studio Plex, Fulton bag and cotton mill to single single-family residential homes, uh, even former schools, uh, the bass lofts, Kirkland lofts those were all former schools that were, uh, turned into residential. So we hold easements on those, um, particular spaces. And what an easement is essentially is it's a voluntary, legal deed agreement. It permanently protects the historic property.

And by doing so it, the owner places specific restrictions on the property that permanently protects it and transfers those restrictions to easements Atlanta, the nonprofit. So essentially the property owner gets to retain ownership of the property and then Easements Atlanta. Um, stewards of the property by holding those restrictions and the restrictions are in perpetuity.

So if the property has ever sold. So for example, if the Healey building has ever sold those protections that, uh, in the easement agreement, Uh, they travel with the land. Uh, so they are, uh, within the title for every subsequent owner. And so that's a really key feature of these in agreement is that it is in perpetuity.

Um, and so I can go into, I have some more I can go into, but that's kind of in a nutshell. What we do as an organization, I will say that the, the three big things that easement Atlanta provides is through our easement agreements. I, um, the first one, as I said, perpetual protection. So all of our easements have to be in perpetuity because they are per national park service standards. Um, we provide preservation stewardship, which I can talk a little bit about. That really goes to what my job description is, but really preservation old building stewardship.

Um, so when we take an easement and we. Uh, agreed to preserve it in perpetuity forever. We also agreed to provide stewardship of these spaces and then the third, uh, factor, um, or opportunity that these easements provide is the potential federal tax deductions. And that's the real key aspects, um, selling point of these easement donations, um, is that the property owner, the easement donor. Is eligible for a potential charitable tax deduction under the internal revenue code that recognizes their contribution to preserving a historic and significant space and they can take advantage of that tax deduction.

And so there's a lot of interplay there. And so he had us looking at, uh, what are the requirements under the national historic preservation act. If you have to do what's called a NEPA review under the national environmental policy act. How does, how do historic resources play into that section 106, if you're doing a transportation project and you have to look at the impact of your transportation project on a historic resources.

So you had us really thinking broadly of how historic resources come into, uh, not only natural resource law, but larger, um, Planning. Um, and so that kind of cultivated an interest in looking at the Bell Building because in one of the classes he goes and just down the street, we have the Bell Building, which is sitting there, um, empty and underused.

And so that really kind of cultivated in me an interest in, okay, I've walked by this. Several times. I know that the Atlanta Preservation Center has advocated for it, but I want to know more. Um, and so that was around 2014, the very next year in 2015, uh, Georgia State did file plans to demolish the building and, uh, the Atlanta Preservation Center and other community groups, um, advocated for the reuse and preservation of that space.

And. Since that time, uh, the building has remained, but there is no, um, specific, uh, reuse plan in effect. Um, so the,

Kaila: [00:12:26] the bell building has kind of sat pretty much vacant for a long time. Since I think, um, Southern bell kind of moves the operations to a different building. And, um, even when. The portions, I guess, of the Bell Building, uh, was used as a restaurant.

You know, most of the building was still pretty much empty. Do you maybe have any like insight as to why it kind of sat empty the whole time?

Ian Michael: [00:12:57] The whole time. No, I don't have specific, um, insight into why the building has sat empty. I know that, um, Jennifer Ball, of central Atlanta progress, um, as stated that there have been, you know, previous occupants, um, it is, you know, I think generally, and not specifically to the bell building, there is a challenge with retrofitting um, updating these historic spaces to modern uses. Um, so how, what do you do with a building that was built for manufacturing? It needs to be used for housing now, or was built for housing and now needs to be used for office space. Um, and so I think that getting to that, uh, conversation point is kind of the first test of preservation is how do you even start the conversation around preservation if you know the space isn't flexible, um, to the, to the needs and uses today. Um, so now I, I'm not sure what the uses were, um, after, um, the Bell company left the space. Um, but I am encouraged by other recent adaptive reuse projects throughout downtown easements. Atlanta holds I'm not going to get the number, right, but I'm gonna try.

I'm going to say between 14 and 17 easements in downtown Atlanta, uh, just down the street, we hold an easement on the Freeman Ford, um, lofts. It was a former car dealership. And now as its name States, it's a loss. It's a really beautiful art deco building. Um, just up the street, the Healey building, uh, formerly offices now uh, condos, uh, the Georgia state, as I said earlier, the Georgia state school of music is in the Hass Howell building. Haas Howell was an insurance company. So the school of music is now a former insurance company. Um, we have other ones that are residences, uh, the GSA, which is a governmental agency, um, which is probably the most, uh, Yeah, it's the general services administration.

Asha: [00:20:06] No, it'd be awesome. We really appreciate that.

Kaila: [00:20:10] Um, yeah, I think, I think throughout all my research, what, I've, what I'm seeing. Is that kind of the big, the biggest obstacle to, um, Georgia state kind of making a move towards, um, as preservation and adaptive reuse is just kind of the issue of like money.

And it would cost like millions of more dollars to actually repair the building than, um, just kind of demolished it. Um, and I guess like what I'm kind of wondering is, you know, if. Like since that's the biggest issue. Um, do you think that there maybe would be a place where that money could come from or, or like, where do you usually see that? Like, the money comes from towards like donations, um, to preserve buildings like this?

Ian Michael: [00:21:04] Sure. No, that's, that's an excellent point because, um, while the preservation of buildings is something I'm very passionate about, the financials required to preserve these buildings is what ultimately is going to decide what, whether X building is going to be preserved.

Um, is there money available to preserve it? You can have all the passion and the love for these spaces, but if you don't have the backing, um, financially to restore the windows to restore a foundation, um, it's going to be a tough road. Um, so definitely there are numerous, um, incentive programs, um, including easements that can provide these financial incentives. Um, I can't speak specifically to whether Georgia State or another, um, ownership group would be able to take advantage of these, but I will speak generally that here in Georgia and specifically in the city of Atlanta, there are numerous preservation, um, incentives available to, um, owners that are looking at.

toric tax credits allow that project to move forward and really helped finance that smaller project. So it can be used in different scales and different scope.

Um, and. What you can do is you can layer these tax credits so you can take the state tax credit, the federal tax credit, and then on top of it all, you can take an easement. And so after you do the tax credits, you can take an easement on the property. And so you can have three, um, financial incentives. And so many of the easement properties that we hold easements on, did a historic rehabilitation first and got the tax credits.

And then they took an easement with us and receive the charitable tax deduction. So for example, studio Plex, Uh, Piedmont and third condominiums in Midtown, Biltmore house, uh, in Midtown, um, and a number, uh, Fulton bag and cotton mill in cabbage town. All of those properties that we hold easements on were rehabilitated, um, under the historic tax credit program.

And then an easement was taken, uh, with the easement donation, uh, receiving charitable tax deduction. So yeah. You can do a lot of things. Um, and there's actually even a project right now in a Adair park, um, called the schoolhouse lofts, which is doing affordable housing in a former elementary school.

And so that has a monetary value. Think of what's the value of a 30 story building. That's, you know, it's hard to wrap your mind around it, but I'll say that it's over a million dollars. Um, and uh, in Midtown, you know, it's, it can be a very significant, um, number. And so you hire a qualified appraiser. Um, sometimes to the easement organization is completely a separate independent from that, and that should, and that it has to happen.

Um, we cannot have any role in the appraisal whatsoever. Um, And so that's that step. If you do tax credits, um, you have to, uh, kind of be very clear about how you're sequencing the tax credit, um, process. And then essentially you have to have it certified on the national register of historic places. So it needs to be listed in the national register.

And then, um, after that we go through the easement donation process. Um, and really that's a lot of drafting the baseline documentation, photographs, plat surveys, all of that documentation and executing an easement agreement. And I can follow up after this call and provide a specific document that outlines our five step process, but that's essentially it.

Very cool. Thank you.

Asha: [00:30:06] Um, now into maybe the more, uh, fun part of this interview,

Ian Michael: [00:30:12] you, you don't, you don't think the IRS regulations, we can talk about that some more and

Asha: [00:30:20] not that, that wasn't fun. Very fun, but just. Just the, the more, um, I guess abstract part. Sure. Um, so as a former GSU student, um, what do you think might be like useful in this space? What would you like to see in this space?

Ian Michael: [00:30:43] For sure. Um, no, I, um, so yes, so as a GS, as a GSU alarm, so I'll speak as a GSU alum, not in my role as easements Atlanta, um, as a GSU feel, um, you know, I've seen the impact that Georgia state has had for downtown and downtown today, uh, would not be what it is without Georgia state it clear.

Um, That Georgia state has had a profound and positive impact upon downtown and everywhere. You look in downtown, Georgia state has brought new life vitality and positive growth to downtown. Um, I started my first year at Georgia state in the old building. Um, In the urban fellows, um, program down in the urban life urban fellows, urban life building down on, um, what is that?

Uh, Decatur street. And if you've ever been in the urban life building, I, I I've heard rumors that it was formerly a parking deck, so I, I really, um, You, you are the architecture students have, please check it out. It's the urban life building. I've heard that it was a parking deck, um, suffice to say there are very few windows and it was not a place of beautiful study and, um, learning, uh, for the law students.

But in 2015 we opened or the hospital opened a new building and it's right next to the. Uh, Candler hotel. And the Georgia Pacific, it's an all glass building that is across from the Candler building. So you have the reflection of his 1906, Beaux arts beauty, uh, reflecting on this glass building and the law school is this beautiful space.

And so I've seen what, how Georgia State has brought, you know, new, um, growth in life to all these spaces they have taken. Um, Uh, space in the Haas Howell building there in the standard building, the J Mack Robinson school of business, um, is in another historic building. On the other side of the bell building that historic parking garage has been kind of retrofitted in adaptively repurposed.

So. I have been very excited to see how Georgia state continues to grow and be a real partner in downtown success. So what, where do I see, uh, Georgia state? Uh, and what would I would like to see, uh, I'd like to see, you know, that, um, what they've done so far, continuing with the Bell Building. I think the Bell Building is an excellent opportunity to blend the new and the old.

Um, recognizing that you don't have to preserve every building and every space as it was in 1905, 1910, 1920. Right. You don't have to preserve it in that specific era, but recognizing our roots as a city, um, as a state, as a country, um, I think it is important. It does ground us in a, um, sense of who we are.

And especially as you walk on Auburn Avenue and you connect to the other spaces, uh, I think having that tangible connection of those spaces does provide not only, um, residents of the city of Atlanta visitors. But students like myself, a connection with the city we call home and the space there at the Bell Building is one of the last historic spaces or that era that would have been walked that people would have walked by now, we're headed to Sweet Auburn, um, the most important African-American neighborhood of its time. And if you had just down Auburn Avenue, you're going to head to where the Atlanta Life Insurance building is where the Atlanta Daily World building is first black newspaper in Atlanta.

And we're very lucky to have those buildings, um, remain. And those are part of the MLK King landmark district. Um, and so having those tangible connections I think is really important to our city. And so I would be really excited to see how we can build on that legacy in a thoughtful way. Um, recognizing that growth is necessary, especially in a downtown core area, but we've seen, um, how these buildings, not the Bell in particular, but how old buildings can be reused. Um, there is a way, and so I'd, I'd love to see how, uh, different organizations, partners, companies can all come together and reactivate this site. So that in a nutshell would be my goal and vision for this space,

Asha: [00:35:35] even um, just like what sort of reuse, um, Plan do you think would work well in that area? Um,

Ian Michael: [00:35:47] like, no, definitely. Um, so the area on Auburn Avenue there, it, when you walk down Auburn Avenue towards, let's say the Atlanta life insurance building, uh, to Cortland and, uh, street when you get to that part of Auburn Avenue, there's a lot more street facing retail.

Ian Michael: [00:39:37] I have a thought on that. Um, have you thought of partnerships with a. Developer that would repurpose it. That could take advantage of all those historic tax credits so that it wouldn't be incumbent on the university or other to do the actual project, but a developer that's interested in taking advantage of all those opportunities.

If they knew those opportunities even existed. Um, I, I point to, um, the summer Hill area and what Carter is doing over there, they've repurposed all of the buildings on Georgia Avenue. They're breeding a Publix student housing. Now some of that's on private land, but that's all near the new Georgia state stadium.

So, you know, I think that this kind of project got to think broadly, you know, are there other entities that would want to be involved, um, that are interested in, um, collaborating on this development? So.

Asha: [00:40:49] Well, it's an interesting thought for sure. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I

Kaila: [00:40:53] was just gonna say, um, uh, Georgia, state's like their current plan that they've been sitting on for a while is to demolish the building and then turn it into a, uh, parking garage, which I think would kind of be a shame because it's one already next to the parking garage, but it's also kind of.

In a great location where it's like very close to, um, multiple Marta stations and it's the streetcar kind of passes right in front of it. And it's right behind Woodruff park. So I think it's like, you know, even when you like, look, I guess past just like the value of the building itself, it's a really good location.

And I'm wondering if maybe there's, um, Kind of a, a better use even if, um, Georgia state does kind of decide to go through with demolishing the building, if there's kind of a better use for the site than just building a parking garage, right?

Ian Michael: [00:41:58] No, um, I, you know, first off I'm definitely an advocate for preservation.

Um, second and I. Have conversations. I'll say that with David Mitchell about parking in downtown, um, there is a study from 2014 that I will try to locate for you. I'm going to write that down right now. Um, that identifies parking in downtown. And that was actually one of the things that I looked at.

Writing it down, um, that I'm going to try to quote these numbers and then they may be a little bit off that 66 or 67% of all parking in downtown is never occupied at any one time. And that like 31% of all land use and downtown is parking. It was something like in that there were 91,000 parking spots in downtown.

It was that we were dedicating an absurd amount of parking or a land to parking and was there a better way, and that's basically what the central enter progress parking study looked at a, was there a better way to manage our land use practices, whether for, from shared parking, uh, emphasizing, uh, carpooling, Marta, um, and just looking at that a little bit more holistically.

And obviously, I guess Georgia state does not have it in their budget. Um, now there is some question as to whether or not the building actually can be restored, um, but. Seems to be more of a question of how much someone's willing to pay to restore it instead of if it's structurally possible. Um, so some other kind of roadblocks in how much are kind of adding to the cost of restoration, is that the building probably partially because it has been sitting empty and for so long, most of the building, um, it has a lot of contains a lot of hazardous substances, such as mold growth, pigeon droppings and PCBs, which are a hazardous chemical that were once used as coolant fluids and electronics. Um, and so, you know, these hazardous material cleanups have been estimated to cost around $400,000. So that is also a big kind of price ticket for. Um, kind of why Georgia state might not want to restore it.

Asha: [00:05:28] And it's like a lot of hazardous materials, like, like the lights have, are contained mercury. Um, we're talking like 10,000 square feet of mold growth and like 12,000 cubic feet. Of pigeon droppings. Um, well I guess it's a lot.

Kaila: [00:05:51] Yeah. Yeah. Well, at first I was, when I read that I was kind of shocked by the 12,000 cubic feet of pigeon droppings.

I was kind of like, how does that even happen? But you think the building isn't in great shape, uh, when we went and visited the building, a lot of the windows in the front were kind of broken. So it's entirely possible that pigeons just kind of flew into the building and either just thought, no, one's here we'll, we'll kind of use this as our house and you know, obviously pigeons don't know how to clean up after themselves. Right,

Asha: [00:06:25] right. I'm not blaming the pigeons I get it. Yeah.

Kaila: [00:06:30] So, so these kinds of, um, costs on top of like, Things like at a representative of Historic Atlanta has said that, you know, the building is definitely able to be restored, but the roof is a big problem for the building.

The roof is deteriorating. Um, and you know, there are some leaks and over time, more, more water kind of leaks into the building right now. And so there's a little bit of structural damage. Um, from the building so that, you know, is another kind of reason as to why kind of restoring the building would cost so much.

And why Georgia State thinks that these costs are prohibitive because there's kind of quite a lot of these, um, issues that cost money to fix.

Asha: [00:07:23] Um, and I think we should also point out that this building has been vacant really since. Uh, 1997. So that's, that's a long time. I mean, that's longer than I've been alive.

Yeah.

And then the Atlanta chapter of the American Institute of architects. And the Georgia chapter, um, they sent a compelling letter to save the building to GSU saying that like "on behalf of the 2100 members of our organization, we asked you to reconsider the GSU foundation's plans to demolish the Bell Building, um, AIA Atlanta and AIA Georgia are ready to stand with you in the GSU community and exploring options for the preservation of the Bell Building before the decision to demolish this structure is finalized." Um, so th these are like for anyone who might not know, these are major architectural, um, institutions and both the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia, it is pretty much composed of like all of the architects.

Um, in the city slash state, um, and director Richard Laub of Georgia state's heritage preservation program said he thinks the impending demolition of the bell building is short-sighted unfortunate and a terrible decision. Um, and Georgia state has a really great preservation program at the school, which is ironic, um, because you know, they want to tear this building down.

Um, and other preservationists argue that while the infrastructure is antiquated, the brick building and large windows are well-suited for adaptive reuse, which I think is true. The, I mean, there's a gorgeous lightwell in the middle that, I mean, it would be great for something like an office building or classrooms or anything like that. Um, Laub who I mentioned a minute ago said that the building could be used for offices or classrooms, or even renting out the first floor for commercial tenants.

Um, so in the longterm GSU has plans to build an additional academic facility on the side of the bill building, but that won't happen until the university completes its next master plan. Um, So we might be stuck with more asphalt for the next few years. Uh, we are, we're not sure when they will finish their master plan and when they do, it's possible that the Bell Building won't even be suitable for renovation anymore.

Kaila: [00:14:18] Um, now Georgia State. You know, has done other reuse projects in the past.

Um, some of these include really Piedmont North, which was a motel and they kind of converted it into a dorm building. Um, the, uh, school of music buildings, the Haas Howell building, the Standard building and the Rialto theater, kind of some, uh, Historic buildings that Georgia state bought and kind of are now using as, um, academic facilities.

And then, um, there's like right down the street from the Bell building, there's the, uh, collabtech research labs, which, um, are it's an incubator for like former students, like new companies. Um, Or people kind of closely associated with the school, um, kind of to kind of allow them the space to kind of create new companies.

And this is all built in a, uh, converted 1930s, art deco, uh, parking garage. And it's a really cool project. Um, they've done, um, You know, the thing about Georgia State is that because of their location, they're kind of uniquely suited for buying up historical buildings and kind of converting them into classroom buildings, because there's not a whole lot of like empty space to expand into.

So, you know, the university is kind of done. Uh, what I think is a pretty good job. Oh, kind of buying up buildings. Um, you know, other buildings that you kind of mentioned a couple already, but some other buildings they bought or like one park place, um, 55 per place, 25 park place, a lot of buildings on park place.

And then, um, you know, there was a kind of dining, you know, places in the student center, but like on this side of the campus, um, There's really not. Um, there's not really any like on campus dining places, so students kind of resort to eating at you know, one of the many restaurants that are, um, nearby, which is not a bad thing, but a lot of students who are like, kind of on the freshmen, um, dining plan, it's kind of like you're already paying for the, um, for the for the dining halls. So, you know, maybe there's a possibility that there could be a small little cafe that students could use, like their dining , uh they're they're dining plan for. Um, and also when I think about it, the, um, I sorry, I just spaced out for a second. Sorry, where it happens. This building did used to have like, kind of a lunchroom area so, you know, I think that would be like a perfect place for a little cafe.

Asha: [00:24:35] And I mean, I don't, we don't know for sure. We haven't been able to go inside the building, but there were two restaurants, um, that have rented out those sort of. Front area of the building. So I'm sure they have the infrastructure to be able to support some sort of restaurant and that could even offset the cost of renovation a little bit, but, um,

Kaila: [00:25:05] yeah,

Asha: [00:25:06] just sort of recruit some of that money

Kaila: [00:25:10] if it wasn't like a, uh, um, kind of school dining place they any sort of like cafe or anything that, um, that they could rent the space out to would definitely help mitigate the, the high cost of, um, restoration course, you know, rent would, you know, rent in that area pretty high. So I'm sure absolutely could make at least a dent. And

Asha: [00:25:44] then, so go ahead.

Sorry.

Kaila: [00:25:47] Um, like we mentioned earlier, like, um, we did say like Georgia state has tentative plans in the future to build an academic facility on the site of the Bell Building. So, you know, they have plans in the future for a building. I'm sure they envision a much taller building there, but, um, Why not kind of kickstart that and kind of skip the step of knocking down the building and, um, kind of start the plan of doing sort of a, uh, student center slash cafe on this site.

Asha: [00:26:27] Yeah. And the original Bell Building is, um, designed to support seven stories. Um, So, I mean, that might even be an option, um, to, you know, keep what's there now and just kind of expand on top of it if they were, if they wanted to include classroom space.

Um, you know, so you've got like study space and printers and maybe a cafe on the first floor. The basement is used for storage primarily in this scenario. Um, and then on the second floor, maybe you have like more the study space, then third for maybe a quiet study space. And then above that have classrooms, or, I mean, I guess, I guess Georgia state wanted to, they could put it in whatever order they wanted.