You may recall the reference to “greenspace” in our recent wrapup of all the happenings planned for East Decatur Station in the coming years.  Well, the AJC has dug up a few more details about that blob of greenish yellow between Talley Street and South Columbia on the map above.

According to the paper, the city is in conversations with AT&T to acquire the site, which according to the City’s Lyn Menne is mostly wetlands and ” build a regional retention center, and….turn the land into a park with a lake, similar to what they have at Atlantic Station.”

That would be quite a transformation from the “employee hub and vehicle storage site” that currently occupies the site.

Here’s a photo of the lake at Atlantic Station for your reference…

Photo courtesy of Cooperative Conversation of America

Construction on the long-awaited downtown Decatur Waffle House – first announced here back in April 2014 – is about to begin.

DM has confirmed with Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne that construction on the renovation of the former Sammiches n’ Stuff/Little Shop space at 515 North McDonough will begin in the next two weeks.

We have also confirmed that Waffle House will remove the false front of the building as part of the renovation and will attempt restore the original brick to its former glory if its still in good shape– similar to the rehabilitation done on the exterior of the Jeni’s Ice Cream space a couple of years ago.

Ms. Menne notes “They are not used to rehabbing and are going out on a limb to meet our request and we appreciate that effort.”

Like many other Waffle House locations around the country, the Decatur location will be open 24 hours.

Logo courtesy of Wikipedia

Another item on tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting agenda: a change order of approximately $13,000 to include three more multi-space pay stations along Ponce where previously, single space meters were originally planned.  The change order letter from Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne also states that after months of planning, the new parking meters are scheduled to be installed next week, June 23rd – 26th.

There’s also been talk around here of late about the start of Saturday parking enforcement.

Decatur has long had stated metered times on Saturday, but hasn’t enforced those limits.  Menne tells DM that when that occurs, the city may start out just enforcing the 2 hour limit, but not ticketing.  Menne says the city is still gathering information on how spaces are being used on Saturday and the approach to Saturday enforcement is “still a work in progress but whatever we do will involve a lot of public notice before tickets are issued.  Our goal is not to ticket.  Our goal is keep the best, most convenient on-street spaces turning over so customers have a reasonable expectation of finding a parking space.”

Last month, Decatur received a low score from the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index, which was based on a variety of different municipal offerings and actions.  A debate ensued about the accuracy of such a rank, and it was noted by the City Manager that some criteria that Decatur didn’t meet were due to it’s small size.  But one thing that was revealed when looking closely at the data was that Decatur didn’t have a Domestic Partnership Registry, while smaller cities, like neighboring Avondale Estates, did.

Now, just a month later, Decatur seems to be remedying this.  Tonight, the Decatur City Commission will vote on creating a Domestic Partnership Registry.  From a letter submitted to the Commission by Asst. Manager Lyn Menne…

Another item on the agenda for tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting – new parking meters!

Here are the details of the planned upgrade in a letter from Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne to the Commission…

[The parking management company has] developed a plan that uses a mix of single space and multi-space meter equipment that will utilize license plate recognition rather than a”pay and display”receipt option. Customer scan pay using credit, debit and smart card options as well as coins and have the option to set up prepaid accounts on-line tied to their cell phone. All of the on-street meter equipment is solar-powered.

In addition to the meter equipment, we will purchase upgraded, hand-held ticketing units, improved collection equipment that will enhance the security and tracking of revenue collections and court and collection software that will allow for the integration of citations directly into the court system and provide for more efficient and effective parking fine collections.

UPDATE: Lyn confirms that the Chipotle will be opened on the Commerce Drive side of the Suntrust building (to the right in the picture below).

After a cryptic comment this morning alluding to national chain, Chipotle Mexican Grill, securing permits to open in downtown Decatur, I checked in with the city to get confirmation.  And here it is.

Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne has confirmed to DM that Chipotle is opening in “a portion of the SunTrust Bank building space and will have a patio area to the rear.”

It’s not clear what portion of the bank building Chipotle will be taking over, but I’ll try to get more info and get back to you all.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

By this point, the Avondale MARTA Livable Centers Initiative report sitting on a shelf at Decatur City Hall must be pretty dusty.  It celebrated its 10th Birthday last year.

But this is Decatur 2013, where it seems that every single large development that was buried by the recession, is crawling back out of the ground, growling, “Permits, Give me permits.”.  And here’s the latest sighting, courtesy of the Atlanta Business Chronicle – “Avondale Project Would Lift Decatur“.

Again the full article is behind a paywall, but the main takeaway from the article is that MARTA is in serious talks with the City of Decatur, to the point where Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne tells ABC that they hope to have an agreement with MARTA in place by July.

Another interesting thought from Ms. Menne from the piece – residents of the proposed development could easily bypass the pedestrian moat that is College Avenue using the MARTA pedestrian bridge and then stroll down Sycamore to downtown Decatur.