Historic Athens is not endorsing the current plan for the UGA President’s House Adaptive Reuse Project. In a statement Thursday, the group said the proposal is larger in scale than the site and surrounding historic district can sustain within preservation standards. The group said the project can succeed with key changes.

Jeff Payne is the chairman of Capstone Property Group which is seeking to invest in the President’s House. He spoke with WUGA earlier about the plan.

“To maintain a house like that is extremely expensive,” according to Payne.” “It’s about $2.5 to $3 million in deferred maintenance and uh, electrical systems and HVAC that have to be addressed before we do anything. There needs to be some mechanism to continue to fund that, which we would do through the hotel.”

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