Cox to donate old AJC building, property to city

City plans to use building for offices - and might strike a deal with GSU

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Cox Enterprises, the parent company of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, will hand Mayor Kasim Reed the keys today to the newspaper’s former headquarters that now sits empty at 72 Marietta Street.

The mayor is expected to make a formal announcement at 10 a.m. at a City Hall press conference, the details of which have been kept under wraps.

The city has big plans for the 475,000-square-foot building, which county records list as worth $22 million (but which is likely worth twice that amount). City officials declined to elaborate on the deal when contacted by CL last night, but the AJC today says the mayor plans to “put police and fire training academies in the buildings, use the auditorium for public meetings, create a gallery space that formerly was at City Hall East, and use warehouse and parking space.”

Another idea we’ve heard is the city could then rent space to or even transfer the building, either through innovative financing or outright donation, to Georgia State University, which would use the space for offices and classrooms — perhaps for the school’s college of journalism.