Tag: development

With a goal of making Georgia State University's campus more walkable, welcoming, and safer, a $100-plus million plan calls to raze the Sparks Hall classroom building and close off part of Gilmer Street to make way for the 15-acre “Panther Quad,” expanding GSU’s new Greenway corridor that weaves through downtown’s grid system. But blueprints for open, pedestrian-friendly spaces also call for the demolition of a century-old building at 148 Edgewood Avenue. A small army of intown historians and activists finds that part problematic.

Overall, Piedmont Park will add more than six miles of new pedestrian paths, upgraded infrastructure, sidewalks and trails for walkers and joggers, dedicated lanes for bikers and scooters, enhanced entrances, seating, restrooms and water fountains and improved maintenance practices.

Will Lulah Hills and its 2.5 million-square-foot campus with 320,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 1,700 multifamily units, 100 townhomes, and a 150 room hotel enrich North DeKalb? Time will tell.

What Newport had toiled for seven years to accumulate took David Cummings less than two months to purchase, through deals with seven different lenders. As of this writing, Atlanta Ventures’ new LLC, SoDo Atlanta, now owns all of Newport’s former holdings, save one. Cummings isn’t disclosing yet what he paid for such a hefty chunk of downtown, but says he’s pleased with the sale price: “You never know what something’s worth, [but] it feels good right now.”

Wedged between Monroe Drive and Piedmont Park, Amsterdam Walk is a quirky commercial area populated by about two-dozen small businesses. The BeltLine-adjacent shopping center is slated for a major overhaul by Atlanta developer Portman Holdings. Here are renderings for the project and what we know so far.

At this point, it’s not just rundown. Not merely blighted, or even postapocalyptic. It’s like a 15-story set for one of the Saw movies—all bleak corridors, scary shadows, busted concrete, and bad graffiti. And unfortunately, the former Presidential Hotel serves as a sort of cylindrical front door for not just DeKalb County but all of ITP Atlanta, at least for anyone headed down from, say, Lilburn, Buford, or Charlotte. It’s been called one of the metro’s most visible buildings and one of its worst eyesores.

Eviscerating a century-old office building and refashioning it into apartments is no easy feat. Older offices are nonpliable, stubborn things, riddled with secret problems and outdated floor plans. But the hassle was worth it for Centennial Yards Company, the developer behind a 162-unit project called the Lofts at Centennial Yards South, a remake of half of the long-vacant Norfolk Southern Buildings.

Hard to keep all the numbered buildings and buzzwords straight? Here’s a quick guide to what’s proposed, what’s underway, and what might have been.

In 2013, the City of Atlanta agreed to fund $200 million of the $1.6 billion price tag for billionaire Arthur Blank’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. However, that covered only upfront development costs and did not account for operating and financing expenses, which will be paid with nearly 40 percent of the city’s hotel tax over the next 30 years, for a total investment of roughly $700 million. Blank pegs private dollars at $850 million, leaving 40 percent of the total cost coming from public coffers.

The developers behind Atlantic Station and Colony Square are redesigning the Marietta shopping center. Here’s what it will look like.