The Pencil Lofts were one of the many construction projects being built around Atlanta just when the real estate market fell off a cliff.  And while it may be just one of many such projects, the future of this project has been particularly interesting, since it sits in a slot along Decatur Street in downtown Atlanta with many, MANY different influences in each direction.

To the east: the King Memorial MARTA Station.  To the west: Georgia State.  Across the street to the north, the old location of the Grady Homes, still under construction.  To the south, Memorial Drive.

As a result, it’s been interesting to observe the ongoing fate of this late-to-the-party, mixed-use project.  And though it’s hard to determine the current residential occupancy rate, two of the properties’ commercial locations were just recently occupied, with an Intown Market and a hair salon.

The Lofts finally seemed to be showing signs that it might be able to hold its own in a very transitional area.  Then last night, this happened…

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In yesterday’s paper, the AJC’s Ariel Hart detailed a project that many Decatur-to-Downtown Atlanta commuters and GSU students/employees already know intimately: the narrowing of Decatur Street.

The narrowing is the result of a push by Georgia State University to create a more pleasant pedestrian environment for its students and staff.  It took six years to complete, but it’s finally done and reactions are unsurprisingly mixed.  Motorists are upset, pedestrians are pleased.

But this quote takes the gasoline-soaked cake…

“This is the kind of craziness that is going on from urban planners all over the place who have nothing but utter contempt for people who drive, and as a result, while they do not realize it, have nothing but utter contempt for economics and economic growth,” [The Heritage Foundation's Wendall] Cox said.

That’s right folks.

Crazy urban planners don’t realize it, but all of their recent decisions aren’t really based on proven models or studies.  They are the result of an unconscious “utter contempt” for drivers.  If you look back into the lives of each and every smart growth advocate there is some early-life, car-based trauma, which compels them to make mindless, zombie-like decisions about growth patterns.   If they could only see past their blinding hatred of cars and growth at any cost, they would see downtown Atlanta as the teeming, diverse, 24-7 urban center that it truly is.

To provide some balance to the story, the article also quotes Smart Growth America’s David Goldberg, a Decatur resident clearly trying to hide his contempt for cars behind calm, rational discourse.

“In principle, that sort of road diet and pedestrian retrofit, particularly in a high-pedestrian area like a college campus, makes a lot of sense” and helps retail business, said David Goldberg, a spokesman for Washington-based Smart Growth America.

Crazy talk.

James Radford sends in a link to a WSB story that details the discrimination case brought by a GSU grad student, Selma Shelbayah, against an unnamed professor who is accused of making multiple dispariging remarks about her Muslim heritage.

Radford ,who is seen briefly in the video, is representing both the student and GSU professor Dona Stewart, who stepped down from her post as Director of Middle East Studies over the university’s reaction to the student’s claims of the incident.  Stewart is also an Oakhurst resident.

Here’s what happened after Shelbayah told Steward about the incident according to GPB…

Stewart told Selma Shelbayah to file an official complaint to the department dean. After that the professor apologized to the student, but a day later, Stewart said that the dean told her to fire Shelbayah, and she refused.

But GSU says…

“In no way was retaliation taken against Stewart or the student as a result of the complaint.”

Uh OK.  Even if only half the details here are true, this is still a really ugly story for Georgia State.

Here’s an idea that’s too often lost in modern academia: try putting your students before your tenured faculty every once in a while.