It’s more than a new coat of paint: Otto’s Apartment Hotel has transformed the former Highland Inn and neighboring retail into a complex dedicated to affordability and being “authentically Atlanta.” 

Real estate development firm Canvas Companies bought the shuttered Inn in 2021, which spurred rumors of demolitions in the community. Managing partners Michael Garber and Benjamin McLoughlin were dedicated to keeping as much of the original building as possible in its transformation, though. 

It took years to make progress on the building, but now the area is transformed and open for business. The once-tan exterior is now bright blue and teal, with the trademark winking Otto owl emblazoned along the strip. 

“Even though it’s gotten a facelift, it still feels like it’s 100 years old and that’s ultimately what makes it different, right?” McLoughlin said. “If we built a new building, that wouldn’t have that same feel and if you took this building and you stripped it to its studs and had all new walls, you lose sort of that soul of the building.” 

The Highland Inn was originally built in 1929 as “Wynn’s apartment hotel” and functioned as workforce housing for young women in Atlanta. The rebrand to Otto’s pulls from the century old building history but it also connects to the new iteration: a series of hotel rooms rebuilt as small studio and one bedroom apartments. 

The spaces themselves are small: square footage ranges from 350-500 square feet and costs around $1,200 to $1,800 a month. The leases run from three to 12-month stays geared toward people in “transitional” stages and new to Atlanta. 

Garber and McLoughlin said the goal is to keep Poncey-Highland affordable, especially to the “newer generation.” 

“The Highland Inn had originally been kind of a cultural node for the neighborhood with everything that went on in the ballroom,” Garber said. “We wanted to still be able to accommodate…