This morning’s AJC reports on Atlantic Station’s new pay-by-phone parking meter called “Parkmobile” and predicts that such an effort might “herald wider adoption in Atlanta”, though does elaborate on why.

Decatur uses a rival company with a more excited name, MobileNOW!.  In the article Assistant City Manager Linda Harris states that Decatur is “is happy with the rival system it has tested and is working on making it permanent.”

I don’t park all that much in downtown Decatur, so I recognize I’m probably not the right person truly evaluate this technology.  And I certainly think there’s a future in parking meter technology that automatically deducts funds via a cellphone, but I don’t feel like we’re quite there yet.  At least for the casual user.  The current technology demands a lot more time and energy to register and use the cell phone system, than to just use a quarter or go on looking for non-metered parking. But maybe it’s worth the effort for those hardcore Decatur street-parkers, once up to their ears in quarters.

I’d be interested in hearing more points of view on this, especially now that we’ve had a bit more time for people to try out the new meters.

Eye-catching title, eh?

It was announced this morning that former VP of Atlantic Station, Brian Leary – who has commented here amidst my many semi-rational rants against the massive mixed-use in the past – has been hired as the Beltline’s new CEO.

According to his AS bio, Leary has spent more than a decade living and breathing Atlantic Station, and before that even wrote his master’s thesis on the redevelopment of the old brownfield site.

Leary’s new task, The Beltline, is a monumentally different challenge.

Instead of building a mini-city based on New Urbanist principles from the ground up, Leary will now be tasked with using those same principles to reconnect existing neighborhoods.

And while Atlantic Station had its fair share of hurdles (parking mandates, GDOT, etc) to work around to achieve its current mixed-use state, it will be nothing compared to the zoning, property and transportation challenges facing the much more intrusive Beltline.

Yes my friends, I’m talking about a planner’s greatest fear of all: the dreaded NIMBY.

OK.  I admit in the past that I”ve spent a lot of time relieving developmental angst by railing against Atlantic Station. I sit here at the corner of Ponce and Smart-Growth Ave. and let the damning adjectives fly.  I mock.  I sarcaz.  I scoff.

But really, how does that help anything other than my blood pressure?

So this morning, after reading a very interesting op-ed over on Maria Saporta’s new blog “The Saporta Report” by the developer of Atlantic Station, Jim Jacoby, about the new “Aerotropolis” he plans to build on the site of the Ford Hapeville Plant, I’m taking a step back.  And instead of just cuing up a snarky rant, I’m going to attempt to be a bit more constructive.  (BTW, the Atlantic recently used Hapeville as a great, graphic example of how much $ it costs to dissemble an auto assembly line.  Highly recommend a look.)

If we must continue to endure these examples of “auto shrines cloaked in smart growth” metro-wide we might as well learn from our mistakes for the next time around, right?  So…the following are my specific gripes with Atlantic Station from a development perspective.  I don’t claim to have any background on how these things are make money.  This looks at the long term success of these projects, not the short.  Take them for what they’re worth…

1.  The near complete separation of residential and commercial/office is a tragic concept. Read the rest of this entry »

40 Element condos at Atlantic Station went up for auction yesterday, and while the AJC seemed focused on the  “bargain” prices, I was most interested to hear that all 40 condos were easily sold.

According to the article, 175 bidders showed up to bid on 40 Element condos with opening bids less than half their original asking price – though the two profiled in the article actually ended up going for more like 2/3rds the original asking price.  To me this seems to indicate that the condo market is over-saturated not because of dying interest to live intown, but because property is simply over-priced.

Though it would be nice to have these condos going for insane amounts of money, its still good to see so much interest in Atlanta’s condos when the price is right.

As the AJC reports this morning, the “Element” condos at Atlantic Station are auctioning off 40 condos on February 28th, with minimum bid prices up to 59% less than the last asking price.  A 1 bedroom/1 bath starts at $95,000!

This surplus of available condos may indeed be in part the result of bad timing in a terrible market.  No one wants to own a condo in this kind of landscape…

“Intown Atlanta is awash in 6,000 unsold condos, according to the local real estate consultant Haddow & Co. Just 66 new units sold in the second half of 2008, Haddow & Co. says. For the year, 645 new condos changed hands, which is 76 percent below the average of the previous eight years.”

But there’s still a lot to learn from this lack of demand and we shouldn’t waste a perfectly good down-market to gauge what types of development are actually desired by residents and what types are just bought up by speculators that have no desire to live there.  Those that designed, built and promoted Atlantic Station as mixed use, should still acknowledge the short-comings of their model city-within-a-city.

Any mini-city built from the ground up will have its share of problems.  It doesn’t have the luxury of an organic city with years of trial and error under its belt, having adapted to the needs and desires of its specific population.  But beyond that, I believe that poorly executed “smart growth” properties like Atlantic Station, often display signs of something I would label as “automobile hypocrisy”.

Like every other “smart growth” model that drives me insane, these developments bend over backwards to cater to the car while simultaneously promoting it as a “smart growth” district.  They show sidewalks and parks in advertising, making all kinds of false promises to potential residents and customers about the walkability and community aspects of the district, while building massive underground parking decks and major thoroughfares that are impossible to walk along. This actually does damage to the public face of smart growth, as the average citizen sees these failed projects as emblematic of the failure of the movement.

The planners of these communities might have actually thought they had the answer.  They thought they could have the best of both worlds – catering to all metro-Atlanta commuters, while simultaneously creating a walkable community.   But the results say otherwise.  Atlantic Station can’t sell its condos because everyone wants to visit and shop at H&M but few want to live (and even fewer want to walk around) there.

But there is hope yet for places like AS.  Like everything else in our built environment, it will also soon be subject to change.  Exterior forces will alter it in ways not yet imagined and they will either adapt or disappear.

The first chapter is already written.  But unless those close to Atlantic Station realize that its not just a down market that leads to $90,000 condos, they will continue to do a larger share of the suffering.

Today’s AJC talks about a couple that got in WAY over their head in the real estate market craze and now are paying for it in spades.

But the number that caught my eye in the article wasn’t their $419,000 Smyrna home that costs $100,000 less than it did a few years ago.  Suburb declines are well documented at this point.  Personally, I was struck by the condo at “Twelve” Atlantic Station, which was purchased for $387,000 in 2005-6 and is now worth  $150,000 less.

This is the Atlantic Station that everyone (including the AJC) touted as the new wave of smart growth development.  Massive, single developer cities that could do no wrong as long as they threw a bunch of residential and commercial in the same general vicinity.   Atlantic Station was so awesome because it had its own zip code and organized mommy stroller walks.   Yeah well, the economy may have played a part in exacerbating this problem, but a 39% decline in home values is nothing short of damning market critique of this project, which shows that all smart growth (just like everything else) isn’t created equal.  You can’t cut corners, you can’t overestimate demand, and I personally believe you can’t build a town from scratch and expect it to compete with areas that have developed over time.

A 39% decline?  How does anyone that bought one of these properties early on recover from a blow like that?  Maybe some of them can wait it out, but a heck of a lot more of them are going to end up hurting.  And what does Atlantic Station end up looking like 5 years from now?  H&M or no H&M.  Ugh.

As you may recall, I wrote an open letter to Atlantic Station a few weeks back about its oh-so-lovely Millennium Arch.  We then had a lively debate about it…”Does it reflect Roman ideals or Atlanta’s identity crisis?”  We kicked a few butts, wrote down a couple names, and then moved on.

But surprisingly, despite our learned discussion, the Arch still stands!  In fact, its undeniable strangeness is even beginning to get national attention.  The Christian Science Monitor actually attended the opening of the arch and asked locals and its creator for their opinions.  (There’s even an accompanying video, in case you’ve got time to kill and you like videos that make you feel slightly awkward.)

Though the article gives its creator some air time, its hard to ignore the general undertone of skepticism by the author towards the project.  A quote is even pulled from a critic on the Skyscraperpage.com forum that calls the Arch “a kitschy McMonument that bespeaks a cultural inferiority complex.”

So just add this article to the pile that frames Atlanta on the national stage, as a city that lacks identity.

But take heart!  Even at Atlantic Station there are efforts to tie the development to the city and its site.  Take this great piece of factory equipment from the old Atlantic Steel Mill that now serves as a statue in one of the development’s parks.

Unfortunately, these pieces don’t get the same kinda press as the silly Arch.

[h/t: Fresh Loaf]

(photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

‘Sup Atlantic Station? It’s been a while since we last talked. (Apparently I’m into taking to buildings today. That’s normal, right?)

I believe the last time our paths crossed I questioned why no one seemed to walk down your streets outside the shopping district. Since then you’ve opened an H&M and continued on your quest to build glassy condos, regardless of whether there’s demand.

But that’s not what I’m interested in today. Today, I’m wondering…what the hell is this?

No…not the guy or the mailbox with the hand-written number. I’m referring to that thing behind him. Is that the Arc de Triomphe? Did you steal the Arc de Triomphe from the good people of France and add an observation deck at the top?  Why would you do that?!

Oh…its not the Arc?  It’s a $15 million Arch financed by Atlanta families that was first supposed to be built in D.C.?  And you let them build it amidst two walls of distinctly 21st century-style condos?  Why did you do that?  What about Atlantic Station screams “we need an over-sized Roman arch?  And why did you put it in the residential district?  Any why is it named the Millennium Gate when it was built in 2007/8?

I’m wondering what it symbolizes and says about Atlanta other than “We have no identity!”?  It doesn’t evoke its history or its character.  Heck, you can’t even drive under it!  Instead, its just another $15 million man-made object that says to the world unconvincingly yells “Atlantic Station is the Paris of brownfill development!”

But this is a good lesson for the kids.  If anyone ever offers to build you a $15 million arch because he likes Roman architecture, think first about whether it makes ANY sense at all.

(Photo courtesy of the AJC)

I’ve been asking myself this question ever since the over-hyped, mixed-use, mega-city first opened to the public in 2005. At first I chalked it all up to on-going construction. “Once this place is finished, kids will play in the fountains, elderly couples will walk hand-in-hand along the wide sidewalks, and 20 somethings will sunbathe in the parks.”, I thought. But that hasn’t been the case. In the two plus years since its opened, Atlantic Station has continued to look as dead as its ever been. Which has led me to speculate that either no one lives here or the homes and apartments are inhabited by some sort of mole people straight out of the 1956 sci-fi movie.

Tell me you don’t have the same experience? Whenever I drive across the 17th street bridge into former brownfill country for an embarassingly frequent Banana Republic fix, all the residential areas are a wasteland. Sidewalks? Empty. Porches? Empty. Apartment balconies? Empty. Parks? Empty.

Maybe I just don’t know where to look. Maybe all the families hangout away from where all the chainstore junkies congregate. I wouldn’t blame them if they did. But I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not the case.

Read the rest of this entry »