Planning Commission To Vote Tonight on Rezoning Avondale MARTA Parking Lot
Decatur Metro | June 11, 2013I’ve been meaning to post this ever since the Decatur City Commission meeting in late May when Commissioner Fred Boykin asked Planning Director Amanda Thompson about the status of the project. Looks like Ralph beat me to it!
Tonight, the Decatur Planning Commission will consider rezoning the south parking lot at Avondale MARTA station as Mixed Use, under the 2009 changes to the zoning ordinance. (Meeting materials HERE!) We mentioned this revised plan back in March, in case you missed it.
MARTA and Decatur have done this dance before, resulting in the confusingly named Avondale LCI Master Plan. According to sources a few years back, the plan was never executed because MARTA backed out, but now there’s a new MARTA-stration (MARTA + adminstration – get it?) and they have already publicly stated that they’re more aggressively pursuing transit-friendly development around existing stations.
The Patch article linked to above quotes Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne saying that there’s no current developer for the site, and that this rezoning just defines what the city “wants to see happen at the site.”
Rendering from the 2005 Avondale LCI Master Plan courtesy of the City’s Website
I figure they will pass it since as an owner of a condo at Talley St Lofts, we’ve been waiting for this since we moved in – and as of two months ago I moved to Charlotte. That is just how things have been going for me
Good.
I understand that most MARTA stations have a fair amount of surface parking to allow commuters to drive there, park their cars, and then take the MARTA to work. But it’s always seemed to me that most of the stations really overdo it. You’ve got stations like the E4 (Candler Park / Edgewood) and E5 (East Lake), where the station is surrounded by this gigantic sea of asphalt, about half of which is never used (and often is chained/roped off so that it can’t be used). Encouraging more mixed-use development right next to the MARTA stations makes a lot of sense.
Add the Kensington Station to that list. Massive parking lot, most of which is never used.
I really like how the Lindbergh station is setup where Marta shares a parking garage with the businesses and apartments within close vicinity. That’s how I’m imagining the Avondale station will look, albeit on a smaller scale. A good amount of parking is used and needed for the rush hour crowd; Avondale north lot and Candler Park lots fill up on weekdays.
I wonder if some of the Avondale North lot parkers already pass by Kensington Station parking lots on their way- so some of that “full lot” could actually shift to the Kensington Station lot, making best use of space for intown station area.
I’ve always thought a daycare would be a perfect tenant for mixed use space at a MARTA station, as long as they could figure out some kind of outdoor space to go with it.
Wow, would I have LOVED that when I worked downtown and had little ones.
I don’t even have kids and can see how that would be a great idea. I know many people cite small children and the possibility of needing to get to them in an emergency as their reason for not taking MARTA. But if their at a daycare at a station that fear is largely negated.
There’s still the issue of train frequency and that has decreased since the days that I used to take MARTA to work. But I think it’s still at least every 15 minutes during on weekdays during the work day. That still beats walking to your parking deck downtown and driving home with lots of traffic light stops.
The north parking lot at Avondale MARTA station fills up by 8am during the week so the south parking lot is pretty critical. I hope they plan to leave sufficient parking there.
we’re gonna need a bunch more schools if decatur keeps growing like this.
the sad thing is, when MARTA was building these stations, the parking lot sizes were based on estimated ridership. that the lots are so empty is a sad commentary on how far below expectations actual ridership has fallen.
when it was originally built, i believe MARTA was in the top 5 largest train systems and had it been properly funded, and participated in by surrounding counties, it would have been quite the asset for metro Atlanta.
what a missed opportunity.
That is what I was thinking as well- but not AS well articulated.