Downtown Athens Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Seven historic commercial properties on the west side of North Lumpkin Street in downtown Athens, Georgia, were added to the existing Downtown Athens Historic District through a boundary amendment. Five of the buildings are two-story, party-wall brick structures from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. They have mostly remodeled ground-floor storefronts, fairly intact upper brick facades and cornices, and modest details such as segmental and round arched windows, corbelled cornices and polychrome masonry. The seventh property is a mid-1930s Art Deco movie theater built around an older structure, with a smooth stucco facade and incised decoration. Six buildings cluster around the West Clayton and North Lumpkin intersection, and one stands at West Hancock Street. The buildings match those already in the district, including those directly across the street, and once housed retail stores, offices, a printing shop, a laundry and a theater. They form a logical western edge of historic downtown, beyond which no intact historic structures remain. Adding them also makes rehabilitation incentives available to their owners.