Oh Decatur, where are your defunct movie studio spaces to do these sorts of things?  Wheatley we-ports…

An Atlanta developer plans to transform Tyler Perry’s old production facility and warehouse near the Atlanta Beltline’s Eastside Trail into a mixed-use development centered around a 12,000 square-foot, west coast-style marketand restaurants. The redevelopment, titled Krog Street Market, would eventually include housing on the complex’s south end.Paces Properties in late October closed on several adjacent parcels in Inman Park near the Beltline, including: the Stove Works, the vibrant dining and office complex; Tyler Perry’s old 66,000 square-foot studio at the intersection of Krog Street and Lake Avenue; and several smaller adjacent parcels. According to commercial real-estate research firm Databank, Paces paid $13.4 million for the combined nine acres.

Well, at least it’ll be accessible via quick trip on MARTA followed by a short walk until someone dreams up and funds that Inman Park to Decatur streetcar line!

Thomas Wheatley has an excellent in-depth profile in the latest Creative Loafing of Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market, including a rare interview with owner Robert Blazer.

History, behind the scenes looks, interviews with staff members, future plans.  It’s all in there.

Oh and according to Wheatley, if plans to triple the store’s size over the next 10 years play out, it will become the largest grocery store in the United States and could employ upwards of 1,500.

Creative Loafing’s transportation nut, Thomas Wheatley, reported earlier this week from the T-SPLOST forum hosted by Emory on Wednesday evening.  Of all the answers given by the panel, Wheatley found Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd’s reply to a question about how supporters should address the issue with potential voters to be the most memorable of the bunch. Here’s Floyd’s reply according to Wheatley…

“The key to it is to let people understand what’s at stake here. I heard someone say this last week: Who do you think is gonna be cheering when this doesn’t pass on Aug. 1? Is it gonna be the tea party people? Is it gonna be those in South DeKalb? Is it gonna be those who think we’re paying a penny and we don’t want to pay any more? It’s gonna be Charlotte, it’s gonna be Dallas, it’s gonna be Phoenix. It’s gonna be everybody we compete with for jobs on a daily basis. They will know we’ve stepped back from the plate. They will know we are not willing to take the steps here to move this region forward.”

Creative Loafing’s Thomas Wheatly writes on CL’s Omnivore blog…

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Blazer, the New England native who founded YDFM in the late 1970s, and his wife Barbara, who also co-owns the market, in their offices overlooking the store. Among a wide variety of issues, our conversation covered the market’s future. Robert, an engineer by training, hoped to one day expand the store to give customers more room and accommodate the various activities — baking, cooking, fruit ripening, warehousing, and much more — that go on behind the scenes. (“Customers only see half the place,” he told me.)

Thomas Wheatley – famed trustafarian of the “wheat” family dynasty – reports on Fresh Loaf that the Atlanta Regional Commission has announced a new round of grant-recipients for the Livable Centers Initiative.  Along with a $4 million grant for the Beltline to build a ramp that connects with Ponce (near Ponce City Market aka City Hall East aka the old Sears Warehouse) is a $2.1 million grant for the City of Decatur towards our Clairemont/Commerce/Church Street pedestrian and biking improvements.  According to the Amber Waves of Wheatley, the grants require a local match.

Other area recipients include: Doraville, New Peachtree Bike and Pedestrian Improvements ($2.3 million), Midtown Atlanta, Juniper Street Bike and Pedestrian Facilities ($3.4 million) DeKalb County, Lake Hearn Drive, Perimeter Summit Parkway, Parkside Place Bike and Pedestrian Facilities ($3.1 million), DeKalb, Tucker Streetscape, ($960,000).

What’s a $2.1 million grant mean for the timeline of this Decatur project?  Guess I’ll just have to ask the city!

If you haven’t yet done so, you might want to check out Thomas Wheatley’s cover story in Creative Loafing this week, which does a most excellent job of summing up the unresolved “problems” with Atlanta’s biggest revitalization project – “south downtown”.   After detailing the area’s vibrant past…

Grocery stores sold everything a person would need to make three meals a day, as well as specialty items such as pig’s feet to pig heads. At Roy’s, where you could select a live chicken, get its head chopped off, and watch the decapitated fowl run around the store. Another shop sold “rat cheese” — cut from a block of sharp New York cheddar — for rodent traps or sandwiches. Yet another bar-be-qued chicken.

…and less vibrant recent past…

Nearly 30 homeless men and women huddled together, resting underneath the long ramp leading to the Garnett Street MARTA station. Others slept on the steps of the police department headquarters in the shadow of the city jail. Even more wandered the streets, asked motorists passing through for help, or stood alone in parking lots.

…Wheatley starts to think about possible solutions and dives head first into a Pandora’s Box of urban fun…

Everyone’s in agreement about the key ingredient needed to help south downtown grow: more people. Which raises the obvious question: How do you coax new residents and tourists to a historic area that has very few vestiges of its glorious past, offers little in the way of decent shopping, and which becomes a ghost town after workers hop in their cars at 5 p.m. to head to the ‘burbs? How do you build retail when the number of residents hasn’t reached critical mass and probably won’t if such basic amenities as grocery stores aren’t nearby? It’s a chicken-or-egg scenario, one that leaves many interested parties scratching their heads.

h/t: ATL Urbanist

Jonathan points out that Decatur ranked as the #1 neighborhood in Atlanta in Creative Loafing’s just-released, unscientific-but-still-totally-accurate “Ultimate Neighborhood Guide”.  (Go to page 12 of this PDF of the guide to read the full Decatur description)

What makes Decatur the greatest neighborhood in the Atlanta metro according to Thomas Wheatley and the people he bribed with laundry services to give Decatur the top spot?  In summary, great schools, a strong LGBT community, lots of beer, and transit.  Glenlake Park and the Decatur Cemetery also get nods, along with blurbs on many of our top restaurants, pubs and stores and cultural scenes.   And what guide isn’t complete without a comment from “social media monster” Carl!?

The downsides of Decatur, according to CL?

High liberal yuppie quotient. (If that’s a plus for you, refile under upsides.)

Swarms of beer lovers on weekends can mean long waits at tiny pubs.

Oh, and as for the “Sorry Midtown” of my post title, Midtown ranked #2, while Inman Park was #3.  It’s all in the PDF!