It’s no secret that there has long been an interest in turning the Calloway Building site (home of the Maloof Auditorium, a huge sloping parking lot, and some quality barbwire fencing) into a high-density, mixed use development.  And in the past year or so, there have been rumblings on and off that the County was finally willing to sell.

Now, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the County could vote on the project as early as next month.  The full article is behind a paywall, but the key points include…

• Cousins Properties, who didn’t comment for the article, would be the developer of the mixed-used project
• DeKalb could vote as early as February 12th to sell the site to the city and then the city would potentially work with Cousins to redevelop the site

I don’t think it’s too dramatic a statement to say that such a development would go far and redefining Trinity Avenue as the city’s second Main Street, something the city continues to strive towards with the redevelopment of Allen Wilson Terrace and Beacon Hill, along with the longer-term idea of extending Fairview Ave through from Ponce to Trinity.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

Next Stop…Decatur just posted quite the intriguing picture of the NEW DeKalb County Courthouse circa 1965.  You can view it HERE.

Obviously, the thing that will strike the post-1965 Decatur resident first is the pond out in front of the Courthouse, now a massive flowerbed, as Dennis points out in his post.  Personally I had no idea there was once a pond in that location!  I would love to know when and why it was eventually filled in.

However, that’s not the only cool thing about this photo.  The other is the DeKalb government building across the street, which once stood along Trinity in the current Calloway Building lot.  I’ve been sitting on a pic of this building for quite a while, meaning to scan and post it in the name of general historical interest.  But Next Stop’s pic is actually superior to mine, as it gives better locational context.

However, my pic – from the AJC’s now defunct DeKalb Extra – also came with a little blurb about the short history and fate of the government building, which I will now share with ya.

Progress Took Government Building – Standing on the corner of McDonough and Trinity Streets in downtown Decatur, the old DeKalb County government building was built during the county chairmanship of the late Scott Candler in the mid 1940s.  Nearly 30 years later, it was demolished to make room for the construction of the county government’s Callaway Office Building.  The old government building housed, during its lifetime, the departments of Plice, Fire, Sheriff and the DeKalb County Jail, Family and CHildrens Services and Planning, among others.