Gwyneth notes that framing has begun at the residential development along Commerce Drive (see her photo below).
Also, the real estate website Trammell Crow Residential now refers to the development – which we have been calling “Paces Clairemont” – as “Alexan Decatur” and provides a new rendering view from across Commerce Drive (basically from the Fidelity/CVS parking lot).
Alexan projects are also currently under construction in Vinings and along the Beltline, according to the website.
Hyper-active variety of materials in the name of “visual interest” but generally decent I’d say. One note: As I understand it, it’s not a mixed-use building. All entrances along Commerce are residential, not unlike the brownstone units in the Artisan.
Good point, thanks.
Scott – you have educated me on Decatur zoning before. If the building is 100% residential and not mixed use, will it still get general commercial zoning or will it be multi-family residential zoning?
Zoning and building type are not the same. In Decatur (and many other places) certain building types (such as a multi-family) are allowed under more than one zoning category. Downtown Decatur is zoned almost exclusively General Commercial, which is a mixed-use designation that allows for residential. So the building reflects a residential use in a mixed-use zone that’s known as “Commercial.” Confused yet!? 🙂
All that said, for taxable purposes, which is something totally different than zoning, it qualifies as Commercial so long as it’s an apartment building. If it switches to condos at some point in the future, it would then be taxed as Residential.
Hope it helps!
Since all of the multi-family coming on is rental and not eligible for homestead exemptions, and, most importantly, fairly high density (mostly 1brs), Decatur’s tax digest should be getting a nice boost with not much additional strain on schools.
See that is what I find interesting and have been trying to get at in a lot of these posts. The city is desperate for commercial to the point where they are trying to annex a great deal of it. Yet, there is land within the City that is zoned commercial that essentially is ending up as residential. I feel that there is room within the current borders of the city to expand on commercial, but the city is going to need to be stricter in its zoning / allowable development. I have no idea how hard of a change that would be.
It’s ending up as residential/mixed use because there is little demand for office space here.
Ok. There are other types of commercial than office. I do nearly 100% of my retail shopping outside the City. I have seen other posts trying to keep high traffic / big box retail out of Decatur, but I wonder if everybody knew that it was going to result in too little commercial tax base / bond issuance / higher property taxes.
Not saying this is the location for it, but if the City is serious about commercial tax dollars, there are things we can do within the City.
Can’t envision that a big box retailer would be that interested in downtown Decatur, even with a mini urban version of one of their stores. I suppose one of those urban Walmarts is a possibility, but it would be hugely controversial here, as you alluded to. But there really isn’t much available space anyway, is there? I will say that I would love to see the mini Kroger expand some, if possible.
In my opinion the future for non-food brick and mortar retail is dubious. I know we do less and less shopping that way every year.
Mike, agreed. Recently my partner and I had an event to go to in downtown Decatur and he needed a tie, in a rush. We really had no idea where to go, so dashed over to North Deklab mall. I understand the COD has done a great job with planning and wanting local businesses (especially great with the restaurants). However I’m not much of a boutique shopper and sometimes need to get normal things. I think it could be helpful for the tax revenue if more residents did their basic shopping within the city. Always a balancing act, but I think they could let a few more known stores in, even if small and limited.
A revamped Suburban Plaza is going to fill a lot of those shopping needs for people. Unfortunately it won’t be helping Decatur’s tax base, but it is very close to downtown.
Scott is correct. It’s in a commercial zone, despite its use.
Or, even more specifically, it’s in a mixed-use zone, despite the name. 😉
So I assume there will be a new pedestrian crossing in front of this building?
The Commerce curve would seem to make pedestrian crossing a little hairy, but if I recall correctly Paces agreed to pay for the implementation of traffic calming measures along this stretch. If that is one lane of traffic in both directions I could see a ped crossing at Montgomery (or Beaumont).
Oh good! Another chance to hear from all the amateur architects and aesthetics experts about what a bad design this is!
I don’t have to have a degree in art or architecture to know when something’s ugly. And the solid concrete-wall facing the roads are pretty darn UGLY.
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2014/12/02/dont-worry-paces-clairemont-parking-deck-wont-be-visable-from-commerce-drive/
The roundy part on the end? Are those apartments? However would you place the furniture?
You just need to factor in the cost of buying round furniture when making an offer. I doubt you can get one at Ikea, but I am sure someone has for sale one of those round, rotating beds from decades ago. Not sure where you get the sheets though.
Ask the folks who live in the rounded end of the Artisan.
“when making an offer”
These are rentals. yes?
And many styles of furniture are designed to not require a wall behind it.
Two words: bean bags.
There are job postings on craigslist — Leasing Consultant, Maintenance Supervisor, Maintenance Technician — for a “Decatur Luxury Community” run by Atlantic | Pacific. They call themselves a fourth generation real estate company.
Are they the descendants of the grocery chain? Anybody know which development they own/manage?
Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company merged the A&P grocery stores into Stop & Shop some years back. They are now known as Stop & P.
*sad trombones*
(I see what you did there, Fats…)
OMG … OMG … the traffic, the schools, where am I going to park????
The problem I have with this development and the one where DQ was is that you can no longer see downtown Decatur. Standing at College and S. Candler you won’t be able to see downtown. Standing at the First Baptist Church you won’t be able to see downtown. Part of what makes Decatur such a cool little town is that it is a cool little town. It’s now looking much different, much larger than it really should.
If you are standing at First Baptist Church (or College and S. Candler) you are IN downtown Decatur.
The cool thing about urban places is that, unlike suburbs, the more you add to them the cooler they can be. They are cool because they offer variety and a density of cool things, and they evolve over time. Preserving asphalt in order to look at a cool place from afar is one sure way to bring about the eventual downgrade of that place from “cool” to “boring.”
This is one of the few arguments I’ve heard for asphalt parking lots enhancing the visual appeal of any place. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
I am not following why adding buildings to an area like Decatur is cool and adding buildings to the suburbs is not cool. Decatur was once considered a suburb of Atlanta, then an “Intown suburb” and now everyone seems to call it urban. Some of the old farmhouses still stand today from when Decatur was more rural.
The farther out suburbs will likely make similar transformations. My parents live in a farther out suburb of a large city and live within a closer walking distance to shopping, restaurants, schools, public transportation, doctors, dentists, and a public library than I do in Decatur. When I was a young kid, their suburbs was mostly farm land.
Is development (or a particular development) good or bad, cool or not? It really depends on one’s perspective and I don’t think one perspective is right and the other wrong. I don’t see a moral high ground on either side.
To be clear – it’s not about the distance from the center city – it’s about the form of what gets built and infrastructure where it’s built.
Small towns can have a great urban fabric. A great urban fabric comes from placing the buildings near the public rights of way (streets, parks, etc.) rather than set far back. But more importantly a great urban fabric arises with a unique mix of buildings and uses in the buildings. The more buildings with interesting uses that get built in a human-scaled setting, the “cooler” the city can become. Also, a great urban fabric is possible because there are many access points – grided streets, transit, etc. With multiple ways to access buildings cities can handle “more.” And “more” adds vitality. “More” is what makes a city “cool.”
By suburban I was referring the pattern in which single land uses with limited access points are the main form. When you add more buildings in say, East Cobb, and only access those buildings with high volume roads and put those buildings behind acres of asphalt, you are not creating places people often find “cool” because they were built for cars not people. People might like a particular use of a building but over time that use will likely change. What’s left is big parking lots and tired buildings that people lose interest in. When you add “more” in East Cobb you create congestion and there’s no way to solve that congestion given the transportation network and the fact that the only way to support it is to drive to it. “More” becomes a headache in suburbs. So the density stays low and because of that, it’s hard to be “cool.” You see many suburbs now trying to attract younger workers and residents by adding a flavor of “cool,” which in every case means creating (or re-creating) an urban fabric with “more” buildings in a denser core.
+1
I should have been more clear. I don’t want to preserve parking lots. What I do want to preserve is the ability to see a small town without obstructions that are reaching close to if not right at the upper limit of the height limit of new buildings. Maybe this will make sense to someone else. I basically just don’t like the fact that we’re putting in lots of oversized buildings that take away the charm of Decatur.
One thing that has always bothered me about any exit up GA 400 is that no matter where you get off it all looks the same. We don’t need to become Alpharetta South.
Bulldog – I hear you. The “new” Artisan condos & the 315 West Ponce development (along with the existing developments on East Ponce, east of Leon’s) have already established the fact that big, hulking buildings built right to the set-back are Decatur’s future. I guess the zoning established years ago by our City leaders established these limits. While I don’t necessarily like the “limits”; I don’t think there is much we can do about them now.
One thing worth noting which responds to Bulldog’s concerns (but doesn’t fully match them in character) is that Decatur used to have no height limit. Developers were entitled to build whatever the market would support, which we see reflected in older buildings like the 315 Ponce Tower, senior living towers, etc.
In the 80s, when the Town Center Plan was produced, voices such as Buildog’s led to an 80′ (generally about 5 stories) limit which was driven by a desire that no new buildings be taller than the (new) Courthouse.
Had they gone much shorter, it likely would have resulted in litigation, as property owners would be able to argue a significant taking. The main reason they were politically able to reduce down to 80′ is that few if any at the time thought the market would ever support five stories on a widespread basis.
Which is all to say, people today look at a building like the Trinity Triangle and interpret it as the city kowtowing to developers at the expense of the residents. In reality, it represents the city kowtowing to the residents at the expense of downtown property owners.
Good point about the height limits. I’d also add that much of the new construction has been in the works for years and was slowed by the recession. So these are not sudden changes being made to the character of downtown; much of what’s going on has been planned for quite some time.
Well, in my opinion, it is bad planning. In a few years Decatur will look like any other town with planned developments.
I don’t think that is a fair prediction. We have extremely unique spaces like Brickstore, Cakes & Ale Bakery (or formerly known as), Square Feet, Mac Magee’s, etc. Although the outer areas may become densified by new developments, our downtown core is the envy of many other cities in metro Atlanta. Someone recently told me that Alpharetta is trying to copy places like Decatur and historic Roswell to lure residents to stay around Alpharetta for dinner.
I see your point and noticed the views changing too, especially when the Trinity project parking deck started going up. I’m just not sure we really could do anything to limit the development & building scales any further. And to be fair, I expected continued high density development if for no other reason than our Marta stop.
The trinity project does seem a bit out of scale to me to, not so aesthetically pleasing in that location (at least at this point in construction). Maybe because it is not surrounded by similarly scaled structures.
I also dislike how the new town homes being built on Oakview loom over the street-part of that is the hill I know, but they seem out of scale to me. Even my 10 year old commented on how really big they looked when we were walking past one day.
It’s nice that you can always pinpoint the age of an apartment building. The look this summer is browns and grays, a little bit toward rust, a hint of green. It’s in every new midrise in the southeast.
Does anyone know if these developments have limitations on if/when they can be converted into condos? Not trying to suggest any specific plan is in the works, but curious if there is any regulation.
None of which I am aware.
My experience in other places is that when things start to get real upscale, apartments get converted into condos. Usually current renters are offered firsties on buying a unit but at ridiculously high prices. So they move, a little bit of cosmetic, lucrative improvements are made in the empty units, and then the units sell at even higher prices than what the renters were offered.
Probably nothing on when they convert. But the units were likely constructed in such a way to allow for easy conversion at some point. Some cities even make that a condition of zoning.