Place on Ponce Apartments Complete; 2nd Phase Already 42% Occupied
Decatur Metro | September 1, 2015 | 10:34 am
The PR folks for The Place on Ponce at 315 West Ponce de Leon Ave sent around this announcement this morning…
The Place on Ponce, downtown Decatur’s first new apartment complex in more than a decade, began welcoming new residents yesterday following completion of Phase II of the development.
Located on the corner of West Ponce de Leon Avenue and Ponce de Leon Place, the 234-unit, two-building, five-story development features contemporary one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and 10,000 square feet of street-level retail space. Amenities include a 4,000-square-foot resident clubroom, 1,700-square-foot fitness center, resort-style pool, dog spa, bike repair station and two outdoor courtyards.
The first phase, completed in late 2014, consisted of 28 units and is currently at full capacity. The second phase, consisting of 206 units, is currently at 42 percent capacity but is expected to fill up quickly.
So what exactly is a Dog Spa?
My husband and I asked the same thing when we were viewing the property back in May. The property manager basically said she was allowed to name any hypothetical amenities she wanted, and that they would figure the logistics out later. Interested to see if it has/will be turned in to a real thing.
Welcome to Decatur to the new residents!
Thanks for this. When I came to Decatur twenty years ago, I was the newcomer of the day, with all the potential baggage that implies. Especially for people who saw me, for whatever reason, as different in some way.
What happened, though, is that I, my time, and whatever contributions I had to offer were warmly welcomed by people of all stripes. And that’s a big part of why I’m still here today, hopefully still contributing.
That’s how I became a part of the Decatur community and it’s a courtesy I make every effort to extend to those who’ve arrived in the time since. Or in the days ahead.
Y’all come. Bring your talents, ideas and yes, your expendable income. You may find some folks busy digging the moat around town but pay them no mind. Every night, a bunch of us go out and shovel the dirt right back in.
I agree Scott. I haven’t liked the nasty tone of some lately who seem to want to keep Decatur all for themselves, and keep it in a time capsule from the time that they moved here, forgetting that, once, they were probably a newcomer and looked at upon suspicion by some old timers. The anti-apartment sentiment, in particular, is disturbing.
I welcome the change. I think the residential density is going to be fantastic for our downtown retailers, and will really help make Decatur the working urban downtown that our City started planning nearly 30 years ago.
Been here 16 years, and people (old and new timers) still look at me suspiciously.
+100. When the downtown population reaches a critical mass (and I don’t know what that is), it will greatly expand the scope of retailers who will want to located downtown. Someday that downtown Trader Joes will be compelling 🙂
I like communities, and I like dense urban cores (it is WHY we moved to Decatur 4 years ago — we liked downtown Decatur much better than midtown or buckhead or dowtown ATL for mid-high density urban housing). Decatur has both. I do hope that the UDO will empower some developers to think beyond the dichotomy of McMansions and 7 story buildings, and create more variety in the housing stock.
When the apartments and other housing now being constructed are open, 28% of the housing units in COD will be in the downtown area.
But what about the children?? By which I mean the hordes of children that have surely moved into this veritable Romper Room of a complex. Someone has seen them, right? If not, can we still believe they must be there somewhere?
Seeing the number of workers still in the back building and its condition, I don’t understand how the developer persuaded the city to issue a certificate of occupancy. People are moving into apartments that haven’t even had the windows cleaned. Also very strange to see construction workers wearing hard hats and using power tools while children play nearby in the pool.
The developer also called the front building complete many months ago, but the facade and soffit along West Ponce still have screw or nail heads popping out the Hardie board sections. Maybe the developer’s moving directly from complete to the maintenance and repair stages of the project.
A recent article was projecting only about 5% of new apartment dwellers would be children. I wonder what the actual number and percentage are, so far, in this new development. On track for 5%, or much more? And which elementary school will they attend? Clairmont or Westchester or??