After 56 years of operation in the Classic City, The Varsity restaurant will be demolished. The owners, the Gordy family, recently filed for a permit to tear down the iconic hot dog joint to make way for what will likely be apartments and retail, perhaps a grocery store. This business move has been obvious for years after the restaurant owners started buying up properties around the restaurant in 2017 and requested rezoning for the 6.7 acres they assembled in 2018.
In 2019, the Athens-Clarke County commission approved an overlay zone for the block surrounding The Varsity after residents feared another major building development would tower over their homes like the Best Western Hotel located off Milledge Avenue in Athens. The overlay district requires buildings to be set back from the sidewalk, caps building heights, restricts the amount of parking and limits bathrooms in an apartment to two.
Commissioner Melissa Link has put a 90-day hold on the demolition permit in hopes of convincing architects to acknowledge The Varsity’s history, but ACC cannot stop the demolition completely.
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