Archaeological Survey of the Learning Ally Parcel, University of Georgia, Athens-Clarke County, Georgia

The University of Georgia is considering using a 0.5 ac parcel of land on which the Learning Ally building is located, on today’s South Hull Street, for future development, which may include a northern expansion of the Hull Street Parking Deck. As part of routine planning and in compliance with the University’s Historic Preservation Plan, the University of Georgia’s Architects Office for Facilities Planning requested an archaeological survey of the parcel to determine if significant archaeological resources are present. This curving portion of Hull Street was created in the early 1960s and was then labeled as Florida Avenue. It roughly corresponded in part to the previous, early twentieth century Becker Street. Florida Avenue was reconfigured around 2010 when construction began on the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Library. By 2012, when the Library opened, the street in front of the Learning Ally building became known as South Hull Street. A comparison and superpositioning of maps show that while the project lot fronted on three differently configured and named streets, it was always oriented to the street almost exactly as it is today; that is, most changes to the street occurred to the north and south of the Learning Ally lot. The Learning Ally building was constructed in the early 1960s on the west side of Florida Avenue as the Recording for the Blind Building. It is a one story masonry building built on a slab with a small asphalt parking lot on its south side (Figure 1).

The Learning Ally parcel is located just west of the crest of a low ridge that overlooks Tanyard Creek to the west (Figure 2). It is bounded by the ca. 2010 version of South Hull Street on the east, the deeply excavated footprint of the Hull Street Parking Deck on the south, the curving access road to the parking deck on the west and a heavily graded (filled and excavated) lot to the north that houses The Student Station (Figure 3). Thus, the subject parcel is an island of relatively undisturbed land bordered on three sides by steep slopes of heavily graded land and by South Hull Street. The subject parcel is largely consumed by the building and its parking lot to the south. The portions of the parcel to the west and south of the building and parking lot are steeply graded cut banks that are now covered in vegetation. The only nearly level, undeveloped land on the parcel is the narrow (9 m wide) front yard fronting South Hull Street, and narrower (3 m wide) strip on the north side of the building.