"There's big shoes to fill, as far as just a downtown bookstore goes." Ian McCord told The Red & Black this spring, standing in the basement space below Jittery Joe's Coffee on East Broad Street, in a room that used to be nothing more than the smoking patio for the old Espresso Royale Caffe. McCord co-owns Rec Room Books, which opened there on Jan. 30. He didn't gut the room to make it feel like a bookstore. He kept the brick, kept the layout that "kinda makes no sense," and let the space stay exactly as weird as it already was.

That's not a one-off. Two of downtown Athens's most talked-about openings this year moved into buildings that already had a full life before the new sign went up, and a third reuse is underway without clearing the lot to start over. A hotel became a steakhouse. A coffee shop's patio became a bookstore. A soul food landmark is set to become a chicken shack. If you've been downtown in the last month, you've probably walked past all three without realizing they're the same story.

The Holman Hotel Space Is A Steakhouse Now

Oak Steakhouse opened Sept. 16 on East Clayton Street, in the space that used to house the Holman Hotel. The menu runs on Certified Angus Beef Prime cuts, fresh seafood, and a wine list built to match, with dinner service starting at 5 p.m. daily. It's the kind of opening that would normally come with a full teardown and a new build, especially for a downtown block that sees this much foot traffic during football season. Instead, the building kept its footprint and its address, and the new owners built a steakhouse inside walls that used to check hotel guests in.

If you've lived downtown for a while, you know that corner of Clayton Street has seen a few different identities. What's notable this time isn't the change in use. It's that the building itself didn't have to disappear for that change to happen.

The Bookstore Under The Coffee Shop

Rec Room Books sits at 297½ E. Broad St., tucked below Jittery Joe's Coffee. Before McCord and co-owner David Parajon, who also owns The World Famous, turned it into a bookshop, it was the smoking patio for Espresso Royale, a space McCord remembers as a "hipster" hangout from his own years around town. The store now sells roughly half new titles and half used ones, many of them dropped off by customers for store credit, and it hosts book readings, flash poetry nights, and literary trivia with Athentic Brewing Company.

A few things about the space stayed exactly as they were. The uneven brick that runs "halfway up the wall through both rooms" is still there. The narrow stairwell down from Broad Street is still the only way in. McCord didn't smooth any of it out. He built the store's identity around the fact that the room already had one.

The Weaver D's Building Got A Paint Job, Not A Teardown

The building at 1016 E. Broad St. spent years painted the lime green that made Weaver D's instantly recognizable from the street. The building has since been repainted white with blue and pink accents under new owner Joe Nedza, who also runs Baddie's Burger House. Nedza is opening Hot or Not Chicken Shack at the location, in the building that housed the soul food restaurant before it.

Three different blocks. Three different kinds of business. Two openings and one project underway, all built around the same idea: keep the shell and give it a new use.

Here's what moved into what this year—and what's still on the way:

• East Clayton Street: the former Holman Hotel space became Oak Steakhouse, open for dinner daily since Sept. 16
• 297½ E. Broad St.: the old Espresso Royale smoking patio, under Jittery Joe's Coffee, became Rec Room Books on Jan. 30
• 1016 E. Broad St.: the Weaver D's building, repainted by new owner Joe Nedza, is becoming Hot or Not Chicken Shack

Why This Is The Pattern, Not The Exception

None of these are franchise buildouts on cleared land at the edge of town. All three sit inside downtown's existing footprint, in buildings that already had names attached to them before this year. A hotel's address became a steakhouse's address. A coffee shop's leftover patio became a shop that hosts poetry readings. The former soul food landmark is now painted white with blue and pink accents and is set to house a chicken shack.

That's a different kind of growth than a strip of new construction going up on a bypass. It says something about what property owners downtown are betting on: that the value in these buildings was never just the square footage, it was the address, the foot traffic pattern, and in Weaver D's case, the decades of goodwill baked into the block. Buyers of downtown commercial space have been counting on that goodwill to transfer along with the deed; at the Weaver D's building, that bet is still unfolding.

Why You'll Notice All Three The Same Weekend

The AthHalf Half Marathon and the AthFest Educates 5K land the weekend of Oct. 10 to 11, the kind of weekend that fills hotels and packs Broad Street sidewalks the way it always has. If you're downtown that Saturday or Sunday, you'll walk past all three of these buildings inside about ten minutes, whether you're headed to the race route or just trying to get to your car.

It's also worth remembering that this isn't downtown's only recent evidence of new energy. Athens Restaurant Week ran July 13 to 19 this year with more than 70 participating restaurants, breweries, coffee shops and bars, and AthFest filled downtown's outdoor stages June 26 to 28. Those events come and go on their own calendar. The three buildings above are the part of downtown that stays put after the festival banners come down, which is exactly why the reuse pattern matters more than any single opening.

What It Means If You've Been Watching One Of These Blocks

If you've had your eye on a specific address downtown, whether it's a storefront you've watched sit empty or a building you assumed was headed for demolition, this year is a decent data point. Athens keeps proving that old bones downtown are worth building around rather than clearing away. That's true of the hotel and the coffee shop's back patio, and may prove true of a soul food landmark that spent decades as one of the most recognizable buildings on East Broad.

Curious what a specific downtown address is actually worth, or want to talk through what a building's history means for its future use? Athens Property Shop is happy to have that conversation, coffee at Jittery Joe's optional.