On the agenda tonight at a regular work session of the mayor and commissioners in Avondale Estates, providing a conditional use permit to DeMedici Entertainment to transform the long vacant Towne Cinema space downtown into a music venue. The application describes the operation as…
…an intimate setting for acoustic shows by National Acts, Semi National and up and coming artists.
There will be a variety of acts from Jazz Pop Rock Country Blues, Stage (Broadway Style Shows), Improv, Theatre Troupes, Events for Children’s Arts (Private and Public), Community based programs for children and adults.
Private Functions such as Video Shoots, TV Shows, Movie Shoots Weddings, Recordings and rehearsals.
Hours of Operation – 11a – 2a
Refreshments; Tapas Style Refreshments. Lite Fare Depending on season. Example: Skewers, Sliders, Empanadas, Pizza.
h/t: Decaturish
Screenshot via Google Streetview
Yes please
+1000
Music venue would be great. Heck, anything would be great to bring life back to that moribund space. But I confess the thing that would excite me most to go in there would be… a cinema.
Yeah, I’ve often fantasized about a cinema and drafthouse — maybe even a cinema and brewpub. But this is the next best thing. I hope it goes in and thrives!
Alamo Drafthouse ATL, please.
Awesome!
i don’t know what the impediments have been to developing downtown Avondale over the last 20+ years i’ve lived in the area, but as other similarly infrastructured areas like East Atlanta, Kirkwood, Decatur, L5P, and VA-Hi have created thriving destinations, Avondale has languished and, at least in my mind, become the perennial “Most Likely to Underperform its Potential” area inside the perimeter.
i truly, deeply hope the powers that be are finally realizing the tens of millions of dollars (or more) of opportunity cost they’ve paid for allowing their downtown to lay fallow, and are moving toward making it the amazing destination it’s always wanted to be.
i’ll be one of the first in line to enjoy it (and spend my money) once they make it happen.
The fact that Avondale has languished has everything to do with the city’s leadership consistently putting up roadblocks for development. They had serious Decatur envy, but the old guard were not willing to put aside their dated approaches and create business-friendly policies. Avondale has suffered, but now at least it seems as if the city’s leadership is taking a more development friendly approach. We’ll see if the next 5-10 years brings results.
Avondale has been working to put business friendly zoning, policies, staff and city hall process in place since the election of Mayor Rieker about 6 or 7 years. ago. Which is to say, the restaurant development, the brewery, the uptick in retail interest, the collaboration between Avondale and Decatur to annex the “no mans land” extending east and west from Sams Crossing – all of this activity now is a function of the foundation that the City has worked to establish in the last 6 years.
It should be note that Avondale serves as a crime-reducing buffer for the city of Decatur – monitoring and managing the enormous transient population that funnels into Avondale from Memorial, Covington, I-285, and the Kensington MARTA station, twice a day. Perhaps a “thank you Avondale Estates” festival is in order.
“It should be note that Avondale serves as a crime-reducing buffer for the city of Decatur – monitoring and managing the enormous transient population that funnels into Avondale from Memorial, Covington, I-285, and the Kensington MARTA station, twice a day”
How exactly does it do this? And what is the “twice a day” referring to?
For any of us old enough to remember the Avondale Towne Cinema’s heyday as a metal club back in the 80s and early 90s, this is great news. Especially since the former location for Avondale Pizza Cafe was recently bulldozed — seemed like the entire kitchen and wait staff there was comprised of metalheads when the club was open. I am kinda sad that the new focus will be on acoustic shows as it seems like Eddie’s and the coffee shops already have that stuff covered. I’d rather it was a venue for good old loud rawk, but anything is better than what it is today.
Now you’re speaking my language!
\m/ \m/
That’s what happens when all the bands getting signed today are Coldplay clones.
Does sound like they’re covering similar ground as Eddie’s Attic. I’ve never been inside that space. Would it be big enough to host amplified rock and not just be loud, or could it be more like Variety Playhouse (also a former movie theater)?
i remember it being smaller than Variety, but with similar acoustics. It was in really bad shape near the end — but that’s a great rock ‘n roll setting. the new tenant could save money by going after the rawk crowd, as they won’t need to fix it up as much for that clientele. It’s the singer-songwriter fans that don’t care for holes in the walls, sticky smelly carpet, permanent cigarette haze, and all the rest. 🙂
CBGB South!
Yesh.
Scott,
what’s your read on why Avondale’s ship hasn’t risen with the area’s tide over the last 20 years?
p.s. reading a good book, People Habitat, and was pleased to see your thinking included in it.
My take is that it’s a variety of things, Rick. I’m not in a position to do an “inside Baseball” analysis, but I can do an “outside Baseball” one. A couple things:
1. The things the Georgia DOT did to that town are inexcusable. So much oversized infrastructure — all in service of “progress” — that really just served to speed commuters out to the ‘burbs at the expense of Avondale. It totally severed the connections, both physical and emotional, between the people who live there and their commercial center. It also created a pretty hostile environment for pedestrians overall; standing out next to College Avenue at the heart of downtown Avondale is not a very pleasurable experience. And the city’s done very little, if anything, about it.
2. I’ve also gotten a sense that, through the period of white flight and massive in town disinvestment, Avondale took some pretty extreme measures to not experience, or at least lessen, those same challenges. Not necessarily intentionally, I think a lot of those measures became ingrained in the form of a local culture that fights to preserve the status quo — something you clearly recognize as the exact opposite of what’s needed to adapt to changing economic and demographic circumstances. I think this culture still reigns strong, if not supreme, in the city’s leadership, many of whom likely lived in Avondale during those times.
Again, these are just gut assessments. I’m sure there are folks from Avondale who think otherwise.
thanks—i hadn’t considered the points you made in #1.
No worries. On a side note, shoot me an email if you can figure it out. I’ve got a scheme to run by you.
It doesn’t have anything to do with white flight or the DOT. It’s about the schools. Now that the museum school is proven, housing is back up. Yes there is a lottery for the spots, but siblings are given new slots before the lottery. If you can get one kid in, you can get the whole family in the next year. So, those that are in the museum school from forest hills etc are now buying “move up” homes in the city of Avondale. Druid Hills is now the high school which is a huge improvement from Avondale High.
Beautiful neighborhood, great swim tennis club….I would still be a resident if the museum school had started a few years earlier.
I have heard that white flight (either to suburbs or private school) was what started the decline of the public schools in Avondale. It was ages ago so I don’t have the details straight. Somewhere back in history, Avondale’s public school system got absorbed into DeKalb County Schools–not sure what role that played. That would have been back when DeKalb County Schools were considered better than CSD schools. What I do know is that, when I bought my house in Decatur in 1991, I also looked at some nicer homes for the same price (all low compared to now!) in Avondale Estates. But locals told me that while I might like the homes, I’d feel uncomfortable with the residual bigotry that still survived there.
WP, can you elaborate on why the schools would be responsible for the decline of downtown? Typically, schools have their greatest impact on residential sales and, as far as I know, Avondale’s residential market has not suffered in the same way their downtown has. Why would schools tank the commercial but not the residential?
Scott, I guess I should have not said those points don’t have anything to do with it, but I believe they have little to do with it. The residential upswing from the school fuels the community. The families moving in with more disposable income support the restaurants, work to establish artist communities, breweries etc. There are lots places in Dekalb county with better crosswalks and sidewalks that no one wants to put a restaurant. Follow the money (which chases the schools.)
As for white flight, I think Decatur had quite a bit of their own when Marta went in. We could talk all day about right or wrong of that, but for many it was just chasing schools for their kids or fear of crime. As a result, for a while there very few places to eat or shop downtown. All changed now, and it is in style to live intown again. Interesting that the thing that almost shut down Decatur is now one of their biggest assets.
From what I have seen, the community of AE these days is quite diverse and welcoming. It is a different place than Decatur, smaller, does not have the county government/business community to support lunch crowds at restaurants, so what works here won’t work there. I wish them well and hope to see some of my old neighbors from time to time when we go eat at their restaurants.
Point of detail: Avondale Estates never had its own School System. Another problem, in addition to GDOT keeping N.Avondale/Covington/College a car-only arterial, was that the County was responsible for the land use decisions in the stretch between East Decatur Station and Twin Oaks/Our Way Cafe. Now both towns have annexed toward each other, so over time, the possibility is there to improve the development quality. That stretch, even when Dekalb was a more “responsive” government, has always been highway commercial (Heck, it IS home to the first Waffle House!) and used to be the first Atlanta area “miracle strip” of commercial for people traveling from Covington to Atlanta before I-285 and 20. My thoughts since moving to AE a year ago are that there is plenty of potential–the restaurants are run by locals (Bishop and Palookaville folks live in the nhood) with the bankruptcy ending, the City can now market development tracts. I also can tell there are some “characters” here, and many are resistant to change, and the City has spent any tax money on all kinds of “Homer Simpson as trash commissioner” services for the residential neighborhoods, not mixed use or commercial. Also, remember Decatur has a population over 10,000 with more commercial and mixed use tax base and AE has one under 3,000. That also is a big difference.
Last Saturday, I walked from Avondale Station to the Wild Heaven opening and then to Palookaville. It’s not a pleasant walk, even leaving aside the heat ( actually probably shouldn’t leave it aside; there’s very little opportunity to duck out of the weather along the way).
The good news is that AE is about to get a study going on how to improve the 278 corridor, with the hopes that changes can be implemented to alleviate the problems you identify. It is certainly true that the trip from the residential area to the downtown area is not pedestrian friendly. There isn’t even a pedestrian crosswalk on Clarendon across 278 to Pallookaville, for goodness sake! You have to cross over to the Bishop side of Clarendon, cross 278 and cross back over Clarendon to get to Pallookaville.
Also, the recent efforts to revise the city’s downtown master plan have rekindled interest from residents to get some development going that I hope will overcome the malaise that caused AE to miss the boat on the pre-bust boom that could have developed the downtown. I moved in as the economy tanked, but I hear there was a change in philosophy by the leadership that happened just a touch too late to take advantage of the rush of intown development. AE was on the brink of getting a Publix and a widespread makeover when the bottom fell out. Now, all we have to show for it is an erector set that sits as a monument to development plans not realized. And the bankruptcy of that development sucked years out of our downtown renewal opportunities as all that land sat in the hands of the Bankruptcy trustee rather than in the hands of intrepid entrepreneurs ready to remake our fine town.
Recent developments have made me optimistic. Oakhurst Realty buying the tudor village building makes a HUGE difference — finally someone interested in doing what is necessary to get quality tenants — and having a spokesperson like Jim Stacy touting AE as well as his Pallookaville brings some much needed energy our way.
all good reason for optimism
brianc: “there’s very little opportunity to duck out of the weather along the way”
To be fair, there isn’t really much opportunity in Decatur or the rest of the Atlanta metro, either (awnings, etc.) vs. what I’ve experienced in NYC, Chicago, DC, etc.
Having walked the 2 miles from home to Pine Street Market, it’s crazy how quickly the sidewalks disappear once you cross Sam’s Crossing. The downtown master plan does have high potential, especially if they integrate convenient pedestrian access to the Avondale and Kensington Marta Stations. With TOD plans for both stations (the county owns 110 acres around Kensington, lots of info buried on the Marta site under real estate), they should nicely anchor the east and west ends of the area as businesses and residences fill in the middle around the city services.
From the description, it sounds like the Towne Cinema could function similarly to the non-profit venues, a la Seattle’s Neptune Theatre or Birmingham’s The Lyric. If they’re smart, they’ll leave the single screen to increase potential entertainment options.
“If they’re smart, they’ll leave the single screen to increase potential entertainment options.”
Agreed. But is it still there? I think I read some years ago that nothing remains from the time it was a cimema.
You might be right, brianc. Looking at the second photo from the February Decaturish article, I would think installing a new screen in the background wouldn’t be that hard (especially considering the massive overhaul required anyway).
www dot decaturish dot com/2014/02/vision-wanted-towne-cinema-waits-suitor/
Why would Avondale want a Publix when they could snag the coveted Trader Joe’s?
I explored it when it was open for the RAD Art Cruise. It’s definitely smaller than Variety, but bigger than Eddies, I think. It probably could be something comparable to Star Bar. I’d be interested to see what can be reconfigured inside. I think it got oddly broken up when it was a recording studio – or maybe it was another iteration or a series of iterations that caused the weird spaces created between the front of the building and the stage as well as the floor above. It could be something really amazing given the right guiding hand. I hear great things about its former glory as a music venue, but I never experienced it. I’m hoping for the best.
I played at the old Towne Cinema in the early 90s as a yoof. A few times. The only one I remember is with Michelle Malone and Drag The River, when she was doing a more arena-rock thing. It was a nice venue all in all, like a mini-Variety Playhouse.
It’s going to be a challenge to get audiences there as downtown Avondale Estates, while improving, is pretty grim and not a destination. It’s the biggest problem with the local music scene here: no central district for catching bands, a bite to eat, and a beer.
EAV and downtown Decatur are close to being that, but metro Atlanta is so sprawling I don’t see us ever having an area like Austin or Nashville where you can park or nike or take a train in, check out what’s happening, and maybe even see two entertainers in a night. So best of luck to the entrepreneurs here, and I hope a few others will come along for the ride and add to the appeal of the area.
Good points. Atlanta has never been a great live music town, in my opinion. Does well on the arena shows and outdoor venues, but not the smaller clubs. Even an area that should be great for what you are talking about, Little 5 Points, has only, what, two venues now? I suppose part of it is demographics. Hip hop has long been huge here, but that’s not really a live music form.
Interestingly, Atlanta’s reputation as a good city for live comedy is growing. Maybe demographics partly explain that too.
Re: “Interestingly, Atlanta’s reputation as a good city for live comedy is growing. Maybe demographics partly explain that too.”
How so? We’re particularly funny? Or our demographics are funny?
From what I’ve observed, live comedy attracts both white and African-American audiences.
I live in Decatur and work in Avondale. There is definitely more energy in Avondale these last several years. Just like Decatur has suddenly exploded with construction everywhere, Avondale is getting ready too. Might be 12 to 24 months but it is coming. It is actually quite exciting.
Just don’t make Monday open mic night, OK?
Why? I can rock a mic like you don’t know what!
Because it’s the same damned night as open mic night at Eddie’s Attic and at Red Clay Theater. We had friends playing at both biannnual shootouts, which were on the same night as well. We ended up at Eddie’s because Duluth.
I agree that Eddie’s has the acoustic scene covered in these parts, but it sounds like they want to have it available for a variety of things, so that’s good. I would love to see a cinema too–even it’s artsy (along the lines of Garden Hills cinema or a university cinema). Maybe during the week?
They should set up a deal with the Little Wine Shop for BYOB with a cork fee!
And what about parking??
The upside of all that undeveloped land is that there is a good bit of free parking to be had, at least for now.
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but what kind of experience does this entrepreneur have running a club, bar, restaurant, or music venue? It’s one thing to have a dream, a business plan, and energy, but I would feel a lot better if the plan was being presented by Steve Harris or Alex Cooley rather than a former roadie/merch manager for Sister Hazel who has found a couple of investors. That space is going to take buckets of money to fix up for what is proposed.
I would love to see the names of musicians up on that old marquee as much as anyone else would, but a space like that will likely only be profitable re-purposed as a restaurant.
Dear FM Fats – (1) sometimes people who come up through the music ranks have new ideas and ways of running venues that innovate rather than replicate; and (2) restaurant failure rate is something near 80%. Big need on this side of town to offer local and regional musicians a place to perform without the old-boy system oversight.
I feel like one thing they need to do in Avondale is build apartments or condos on that property where the now-demolished “Georgia Duck” plant was on Laredo Drive with space for restaurants and retail on the ground level. Of course they need to be developed by a “nicer” company (I’m thinking Walton or Worthing) and architecturally, they need to match the Tudor style of the existing Avondale village. Think of it as an expansion of downtown Avondale. With some of the businesses that have popped up on Laredo drive and the expanding YDFM, the Laredo corridor could transform into a somewhat walkable district.
Incidentally, I was also about to write that they need a new fire station. I used to have a job where I did market research at Fire Stations and the place is as dilapidated on the inside as it is out. Funnily enough, I’m watching the news as I’m writing this and they just said a new one is going up further on Clarendon. So the land where the current Fire Station offers more potential to grow.
The Georgia Duck property was zoned for multi-smily residential by the city several years ago, working in conjunction with the property owners, so the zoning is in place to increase the downtown population to support the restaurants and retail. In the last few weeks, a company has been performing environmental due diligence sampling (drill rigs and drums), suggesting that the parcel is under contract.
Also, we noticed yesterday that sidewalks are being installed on Laredo between downtown Avondale and YDFM – spectacular!
Regarding the fire station, it is being rebuilt on the same parcel as the old station (just a larger footprint across the entire parcel), so that parcel will not be available for commercial growth.
All this sounds splendid! Wouldn’t it be nice if those industrial buildings off Laredo turned into a collection of art galleries and restaurants? I also kind of feel like that shopping center where the Our Way Cafe currently is would make a nice Publix too. Just my opinion. Anything that will make Avondale St. between The Village and the MARTA station would be nice (Including some of the infill development that MARTA itself is looking into doing on their East Line parking lots.)
My bad on the Fire Station. The map graphic they showed on the news made it look like it was going to be located further down the street.