Brenau University leaders announced Monday the school will open its second Atlanta-area campus this fall.

The university signed a seven-year lease for a complex in historic Fairburn, which is about a 25-minute drive from downtown Atlanta.

Classes at the South Atlanta/Fairburn campus will begin on Aug. 28.

The campus will be the institution’s fourth nonresidential campus in Georgia. It will operate under the Brenau University umbrella which has campuses in Kings Bay, Augusta, Norcross and Gainesville.

"This is an excellent opportunity for Brenau to spread its high-quality programs into an area of our state that is under served by higher education institutions," said Brenau University President Ed Schrader in a news release. "From our perspective, this new Atlanta South/Fairburn campus has enormous growth potential both for traditional-age students and for older students and people who may want to change careers or improve job skills to enhance their personal competitiveness."

The new campus will operate from an 18,400-square-foot academic building in a new $10 million, four-acre education complex developed by the Fairburn city government to attract nonresidential higher education operations, according to the news release.

Undergraduate and graduate programs at the new South Atlanta campus include business administration to be followed by education and health care programs. The university is also exploring additional undergraduate and graduate degree tracks in occupational therapy, interior design, project management and other disciplines.

Georgia Military College will share the Fairburn complex with Brenau University. Brenau and the two-year Georgia Military College already share space in Augusta and offer compatible programs in several areas to enable GMC graduates to complete studies for four-year or graduate degrees at Brenau.

Students can apply now to attend Brenau’s new South Atlanta campus at www.brenau.edu/Admissions/default.cfm.