Tampa developer with history in Selma is sole bidder for abandoned Dallas Academy site 

The company renovating Brown Chapel was the sole bidder for purchasing the abandoned Dallas Academy.   

The Lathan Co., based in Mobile, along with Tampa-based Invictus Development, offered $50,000 for the property on 816 Selma Ave. in Selma’s Old Town Historic District.

The Selma City Council opened the bid at their July 23 meeting but took no action.   

The bid states the developers will renovate the building to include two first-floor meeting rooms, a walk-in art studio in the basement and nine residential units.   

Built in 1889, Dallas Academy originally housed a private school funded by the Ladies Educational Society of Selma. It later became Selma’s first public school, according to rural southwest Alabama archives. Selma’s public school system is the second oldest in Alabama. The school closed in the early 1960s, but the space was used by the Boy Scouts of America and several artists for years.   

InVictus Development purchased the Harmony Club, a former men’s club on Water Avenue, in February 2022. The company owns the former GAW Antiques building across from the St. James Hotel also on Water Avenue. InVictus first came to Selma to build the affordable housing apartment complex Lodges on Lincoln off Highland Avenue in 2021.