The Atlanta Opera will transform the historic Bobby Jones Clubhouse into a performing arts center with a recital hall, theatre venue, education spaces, and administrative and rehearsal areas for the Opera.
Located in Peachtree Battle on Woodward Way along the Atlanta Beltline, the facility is expected to cost $45 million with core funding already secured, according to a press release from the Opera. Announcements of the donors and a capital campaign will be announced soon, and the project is estimated to be completed by the summer of 2027.
The long-vacant clubhouse, which served the Bobby Jones Golf Course in Atlanta Memorial Park, was built in the Grecian revival built in the early 1900s.
Allen Post, managing partner of the Atlanta-based architecture firm, Post Loyal, is leading the team designing the Opera’s new home. Preliminary plans call for restoration of the exterior of the historic clubhouse, while a state-of- the-art facility will face the Atlanta BeltLine. The total site area encompasses 4.7 acres of green space, the center, and parking.
The 17,000 square foot clubhouse will transform into a 56,000+ square foot complex housing a 200-seat recital hall, administrative offices, a costume shop, a film studio, a rehearsal hall, and garden spaces. Theater Projects and A’kustiks, LLC., are developing the recital hall as a premiere venue to present classical singers and musicians, jazz ensembles, lectures and spoken word artists, and other performing arts.
“This new, permanent home for The Atlanta Opera ensures the right fit for our current and future growth,” Tomer Zvulun, the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director of The Atlanta Opera, said in a statement. “A state-of-the art facility in this park setting will be a source of creativity for our local and visiting musicians. It is perfectly positioned to help us serve audiences and collaborators in our beautiful city and beyond.”
The Opera said it will continue to host its main-stage productions at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
The clubhouse has been in limbo since 2018 after a nonprofit called the Haynes Manor Recital Hall Foundation of Atlanta was created with plans to turn the building into a recital hall.
According to the press release, the Opera’s search for a new facility converged with those of the Haynes Manor Foundation. The Atlanta Opera has subsequently worked closely with the Haynes Manor Foundation, the Peachtree Battle Alliance, and the Atlanta Memorial Park Conservancy to plan the new space.
Atlanta Preservation Center Executive Director David Y. Mitchell said the organization was “very optimistic” about plans to preserve the clubhouse building, due to its historic connection to Bobby Jones and its importance as a gathering place for golfers and their families on the city’s first public golf course.
“The Atlanta Preservation Center is very optimistic that the process to illustrate the power of the Arts Community can be equally amplified by the preservation of the Historic Bobby Jones Clubhouse and the construction of the new Atlanta Opera,” Mitchell said. “It will be the merger of two historically significant and very Atlanta institutions.”
