The Medlock Neighborhood’s blog has an informative update regarding design, permitting/scheduling, leasing, and traffic/transportation of the pending Suburban Plaza renovation.
Rendering courtesy of Selig via MANA
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I really hope that it turns out this nice. And that there are at least some businesses that I would use. Still not lovin the Walmart. Wish there was going to be a grocery store there would love a nice grocery store in walking distance.
You had one, then another, but they both closed.
Yep there was a Winn Dixie and then a Save a Lot. I don’t recall either of them being NICE to shop at. Dirty and sad is what i recall. I dont think location has ever been the problem with Suburban Plaza, i think the low quality of the condition has been the issue
Is this particular Walmart not going to have a grocery? I’ve been in some of their grocery sections and they’ve been pretty nice places.
I don’t know. I just don’t want to shop at Walmart at all. When I lived in KY they came in and drove out all the small stores. And they became the only option for a lot of things. I know capitalism at it’s finest, just left me with a very bad impression. I don’t want to give them my money.
Don’t want dirty–Check
Don’t want sad–Check
Do want quality–Check
Do want convenient–Check
Don’t want clean, happy, convenient, quality if it’s Walmart–Check
Sorry, don’t think I can help you on this one.
+1
Looks like they’ve gone out of their way once again not to show how much out of scale with the rest of the center the Walmart will be. The last rendering they did didn’t show the Walmart at all just some trees even though the projection looked directly at it. The plan view gives some idea but the renderings not at all.
I think a little photoshop work is in order since there are plenty of shots of Walmarts around the country and they’re not going to do anything different here.
That way for better or worse we could get an idea of what the complex will look like.
Going with total snark here, but this is not your property. If you want to control what goes in, invest your own money and manage the construction. At this point, as far as I know, no further approvals are needed. Further comment won’t change anything. If you choose not to support the development, don’t shop there.
Speaking as a private property owner who has been subject to RIDICULOUS control over what I build on the property I own, I am just really, really tired of this topic.
I actually kind of agree with you. But since I live about a block away on Church Street I am interested in how this all will change traffic flow and availability of decent shopping. It is already a bear to get out of Decatur during parts of the day. Would love not to have to drive so much for good places to shop. I love the North Decatur/Emory Publix for example but traffic up there is rough sometimes, would be nice to have more options out here. Also love the Farmer’s Mkt but they don’t carry paper and cleaning products. Already have to make multiple trips. I think I am accidentally making an argument for Walmart where you can get all this in one place
Now I sort of see their thinking. I just don;t like Walmart. Bummer!
That’s not total snark at all. Moderation prevents me from providing an example.
Just would like a clearer picture of what the center will look like warts…excuse me, Walmarts and all.
If they weren’t being somewhat disingenuous they would have already done that.
My suggestion is to move somewhere that has fewer zoning or gov controls over your god given right to build. I believe you wouldn’t be so tired then.
Selig can’t show you what the Wal-Mart will look like, as Wal-Mart has control over their building’s design and construction.
They can use a white box placeholder of the appropriate size so that we can see it.
Or they can use one of their super center models of which I’m sure one would be like the Walmart we’ll get with minor cosmetic changes.
Remember Walmart is a logistics chain not an individual store. If they don’t put the end of the hose here they’ll put it somewhere else. They really don’t care about you or this community. Defending this behemoth in the name of individual liberty laughable at best.
I don’t really care if they care about me. If they provide me value as a consumer due to their logistic efficiency, I will be happy to take those savings and buy more beers at the Marlay and the Brick Store.
Put another way, there are places where I am happy to pay a premium for the rich experience or expertise provided by an independent proprietor (bars, restaurants and specialty stores).
For commodity packaged goods, I want to shop somewhere convenient, safe and affordable. If this Wal-Mart delivers on this level, great – I will shop there! If they don’t (see Avondale Wal-Mart), then I won’t shop there.
“Convenient, safe, affordable” …the Avondale Walmart is not those? In which way(s) specifically? I don’t especially like shopping there, but on the occasions I’ve had to go there I’ve not had a problem. Would be interested to hear more.
Avondale WalMart is not convenient – I live off Scott boulevard so it is not close, and the checkout lines can be very slow.
While I have not personally found it to be unsafe, my wife is not comfortable visiting there after the dark after an incident of someone harrassing her in the parking lot when she was buckling the kids into their seats.
Affordable… well it IS WalMart, so that’s not a problem.
Hudsucker- It’s certainly your choice to remain negative, but please allow that other folks are very interested in learning more details about Suburban Plaza’s re-do. Rather than holding off until every detail can be released, we’ll continue to share news as it’s made available. Walmart’s building will fit within the plan’s footprint, and like the update says, Walmart wants it to mesh well with the rest of the Plaza. The Walmart stores that have been built in the metro area in recent years are attractive, so I’m sure we have no worries there.
(BTW, interesting twist on your last name. )
I’m glad you think so. They all look the same to me. Please visit some architectural sites around the web and then come back and tell me what you think.
Also read a bit about major corporations and what happens to their allies once they are no longer needed to help with the profit picture. Rolled up and smoked deary, rolled up and smoked.
Good luck with your new pals.
Keep suckin’ on that bitter root, Hud. Whatever helps you get through life.
+1
It is interesting that you do not see the massive walmart or the massive parking facility. How quaint it would be if this image was accurate. I’ve yet to see a walmart that i would consider pleasant. Not to Scale? probably more like Not to Reality.
Is there going to be a massive parking facility? I thought the majority of the parking was going to be underground.
New Scott- Almost all of Walmart’s parking is underground, along with a huge vault to capture rain runoff that’ll be a godsend to the neighbors who live on the streets behind the Plaza! Walmart will have some above ground parking lot spaces, and the Plaza’s parking lot areas will be adjusted for added pedestrian and bike safety. There’s also going to be an added underground parking area under Tenant “C”.
I don’t know, D…. I don’t see any bike racks in this rendering, so that can’t possibly be true.
Hmmm. That IS a problem… maybe we can use giant magnets to attach them to the steel tower. Storage –AND- art feature!
The view is looking toward Church St.
I would like to see some facilities for bicycles added to the site plan.
You really think people will bike to Walmart? I am not seeing it.
“I am not seeing it.”
Why?
I ride to BIgLots so it stands to reason that as soon as the construction dust settles, I will ride to Walmart.
What’s missing around here is imagination! If I can haul a watermelon from Emory Commons and a potted palm from Ace, what’s a weetle fluffy 12-pack of Bounty? Seriously, this is downright insulting.
tiptoe does not see you riding. You must be wearing the Bike Helmet of Invisibility.
IT’S BOBBY! YAY! I’m so glad you’re back! :0)
There will be rack space for 50 bikes, and Selig’s incorporated the input they received from bikes folks and PEDS into the parking areas and lanes within the redevelopment.
The rendering of the new plaza look very similar to the ones they released for the memorial dr./ Colombia Walmart. I live a couple blocks from it and it doesn’t look like any of the nice sketches they put out.
Put down the pitchforks, people. This is just one of many renderings and site plans. This pic is just to show the exterior of the shopping center that Selig will control. It was never meant to show the Walmart. There are site plans that show the size of the WalMart and the configuration of the parking lots.
No.
I think you folks are all missing the point of the picture above. It is labelled “Color Scheme.” To me, the take home message is that Selig apparently expects only white people to shop here. And not just white people, but VERY VERY WHITE people.
And they are wearing white, which is acceptable, because Labor Day hasn’t arrived yet. But if this picture shows these very white people still wearing white after next Monday, Selig will need a lesson from some of the true Southern ladies in town.
Sounds like a job for Deanne.
Uh uh, no way! Not me! We caught an earful from those Selig men about having “lady food” at the last meeting—no way I’m rolling out the No White After Labor Day rule! :0)
(“The ghosts wandering around looking for Belk” is one of my favorite comments ever! :0)
It’s a faux Southern belle rule, anyway. This far south, the real guideline is, dress for the weather, not the season.
OK, now I’m curious (and extremely bored with all the WM bashing) — what did you have for refreshments that elicited the comment “lady food”?
Very nice little wrap sandwiches, an assortment of fresh fruit & cheeses, and yummy gourmet cookies…oh…
(Y’all please know I’m teasing folks I’m quite fond of! The food was delicious—and brought in by Selig. We just had a wee bit of, well, man panic over doing without red meat for one meal. Happily, everyone survived! :0)
I am not sure just me and David Caruso can keep them in business.
It’s better than what’s there now, and probably the best that can be done considering the circumstances.
However, on the architecture, the steel girder tower really seems out of place when you are trying to make the building “green”. It reminds me of that tower structure adjacent to the old Three Dollar Cafe in Buckhead.
What is the steel tower anyway? Is it decorative or functional? If it’s just decorative, I agree that it’s not very appealing.
How about putting a Little Library (see Decatur Book Festival auction) on the little lawn? A homey touch!
The tower’s decorative and still being contemplated for enhancements. Cool ideas are welcomed! :0)
That tower’s freaking me out (but I heard that the pigeons that got evicted from BigLots are very excited about coming home).
And what’s with the levitating smokestack? Does it have a fire pit underneath?
ohwaitaminute… are they… connected? With Maddy’s gone and Fox Brothers having pulled out of the deal… is this a new restaurant concept?
(apologies in advance if this makes the designers cry. I just can’t make no stinkin’ sense of it)
Can’t think of anything offhand, but my recommendation is to either figure out a way for it to be used, or don’t built it. Otherwise, it’ll just collect bird poop and wayward adolescents.
Party at the moon tower.
Bird poop= organic splatter art.
Wayward adolescents=Hey, where’s Junderscore, Chadly, and TeeRuss…?
Tower ideas to decorate and add a bit of learning for the kiddies:
1 – add a windmill at the top of the tower that will power a water feature at the bottom.
2 – add some mirrors at the top to allow the tower to become a periscope from ground level with views of Stone Mountain and downtown.
Russ- L-O-V_E your ideas and Cat’s below! In fact I can’t stop thinking about them! I’ll definitely make sure these suggestions are in the mix to be considered! :0)
Selig has show their true colors in how they managed and maintained this property for years, and no one could buy it to improve it. They’re bringing in Walmart because Walmart is bringing their own development money. Let’s see what happens with the rest of the center, and what kind of tenants they attract and retain.
” Let’s see what happens with the rest of the center, and what kind of tenants they attract and retain.”
YES!!! Exciting news to come!!! :0)
Tower- Make it taller with a pinicle, add a clock to all four sides, and maybe chimes for the top of the hours. Add a weathervane that works. And of course a large American flag.
Chris, I’ll definitely share your ideas! :0)
Uh, I don’t think so. That would look out of place given the rest of the design. Unless that was sarcasm in which case I missed it.
I love the idea of a real clock tower with a WORKING clock and a real weathervane. I leave the design details to those with aesthetic expertise.
Stealing from a mind far more brilliant than mine, because this needs to be out there… the tower cries for a steampunk design. Then you can have a weathervane AND a clock and whirligigs and whatnots. And it can vent steam (or puffs of air) at sundry intervals to keep the pigeons away. Didn’t they say modern-retro-industrial was one of the “dominant styles for the area,” hmmmm?
Get drawing, artsy people. Artists, crank your blowtorches! Photoshop, anyone?
I’m in, as long as there’s a way to run a wire from the tower and space for my DeLorean to hit 88 mph.
Where are my pants?
Or make it into Decatur’s version of the Big Chicken. Maybe the Big Pete The Cat?
We’d have to annex them first before they can touch Pete
You’re one tough cookie, cookie!
(pssst! TeeRuss! Distract her while I pitch Pete!)
Meanwhile, good Growth DeKalb is still at it:
http://northdruidhills.patch.com/articles/good-growth-dekalb-explains-walmart-support-claims
That’s awesome. I live less than 2 miles from Suburban Plaze, squarely in the area they claim to have canvassed. Since nobody came by to ask me, I can assure everybody here that at least sixty-ONE households now support it!
Seriously, what a freaking joke…
Well, if they gave “long consideration” to determining which areas they think are representative, then how can we argue with their DATA?
Hey, I am less than a mile from it, but somehow my house got skipped — maybe it is because I dont have a sign in my yard supporting GGD…
They are officially embarrasing themselves now.
Besides, within the limits of CoD, cars and houses get vandalized if the owners put a political sign up in their yard for a Republican candidate. Who would admit to those loons that they support WM?
Does hard data exist that cars and houses in City of Decatur are more likely to be vandalized if properties have a Republican yard sign vs. a Democratic yard sign vs. no yard sign at all? I find it hard to believe that the rate truly varies by yard sign. It seems even more unlikely that the yard-specific rates have truly been measured in COD. The numerator can be gotten from police records but how would one document the denominator of yards with, without which type of yard sign?
It seems to me that other variables are more likely at work–parking on street, weather, location of street, time of day, recent burglaries in area, etc.
There’s really only way to find out if this is true. I’ll put up a Romney sign in your yard and an Obama one in mine and we’ll see what happens
Maybe it’s all accidental. Earlier this year, I myself nearly drove completely off the road when I spied a Santorum sign deep within the city limits.
I guess so! That sounds like a Decatur version of the old flamingo prank (it gets stuck in your yard and then you pass it on to someone else under the cover of night). Although I kind of like the flamingos. And gnomes. I like them, too.
Um, no….I was thinking that I’d be the control with no yard sign, you’d have the yard with the Obama sign, and Dawg Fan would have the Romney sign. That way, if any of the three of us have our car or house burglarized, we’ll at least have the satisfaction of feeling that we were right!
I can agree to that. Only problem is that I don’t know where DawgFan lives. So I’ll have to ride around and place Romney signs in all the yards with UGA flags or bumper stickers on their cars. That’s gonna take a lot of Romney signs. Token and DEM, you guys have any extras I can borrow?
Nope, none here. Not after 2008, when one of our “neighbors” looked at the sign and asked if anyone had threatened to firebomb our house yet.
Let me say up front that I am only (half) kidding, but your response makes me think you may be the perpetrator of the anti-Republican shenanigans
Honestly, I’ve been thinking until now that the thread on this headline was “Suburban Plaza Angst Update.”
Hah! The way you can tell it wasn’t an Angst update is that it wasn’t numbered. This would have been, what, Angst Update #11?
It’s only Angst if you’re part of Good Growth DeKalb and realize that the whole thing is a done deal which, because of your attitude, you had no say-so about.
I don’t understand the continued mantra of “It’s better than what’s there now.” Aren’t there plenty of businesses currently operating at Suburban Plaza? That is, until they started moving out in July in anticipation of the new construction. That Pottery Place (which moved to North Dekalb mall in July because of WM), Big Lots, Family Dollar, the uniform shop, the nail shop, the trophy shop, the sari shop, Dekalb Antiques or whatever it’s called, the theatre, Hancock’s, the diaper depot (I have a relative who uses them–drives all the way from Gwinnett County to get diapers for her severely disabled teenage daughter), the wig/hair shop…there are actually only a few storefronts that were empty up until this summer. Why does everyone keep discounting those as thriving businesses?
+1
It may be a grotty shopping center, but it’s not an empty, grotty shopping center. Unlike so many Wal mart has simply abandoned over the years (see Lilburn, Smyrna, Forest Park, Jonesboro, Fayetteville, etc., etc.)…
Exactly my point. If anyone thinks it’s crappy now, just wait until WM leaves in a few years…
Based on the amount of money being spent on this WM, it is hard to imagine them leaving in a “few years”. Plus, this isn’t Stockbridge or Commerce where they can move two miles down the street to a “better” location. If WM is committed to ITP, its options are much more limited.
Wal mart’s income last year was $109 billion — more than the entire GDP of at least 50 countries. They wouldn’t think twice about abandoning the rather cramped Suburban Plaza site if they thought they could generate more revenue somewhere else.
tiptoe- From what I’ve gathered in exchanges with so many folks about this project, most are referring to Suburban Plaza’s underperforming status, rather than meaning to put down the current tenants. These are all handy businesses that many of us want to have nearby. While all of them are able to succeed at Suburban Plaza now, it’d be extremely challenging for most of them to meet market rate rents once the redevelopment is completed. Right now, the existing businesses are considering their options. Please know that Bill Stogner has said that he’ll help the current tenants in sussing out locations if they end up relocating. (I know of one instance already where he’s made calls on a tenant’s behalf.) Also please know that this is personally important to me, so I will stay on it.