Trinity Triangle, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Jane)

A few folks here have expressed frustration here with the Trinity Triangle (aka Arlo) parking deck that now fronts East Howard Avenue.  The city provided some interesting further details on this layout and what’s planned to mitigate it in the latest Decatur Focus…

We had originally hoped to have residential fronting the railroad side of the parking deck but it was impossible to get financing for the project with that configuration.  While the parking deck will be visible from the south side of the project, the developer has committed to working with the Decatur Arts Alliance to identify and fund a mural artist to create a work of art on that elevation, and to maintain the artwork after its creation.

Rendering courtesy of ColeJenest and Stone website

I know there have been some questions about the layout of Trinity Triangle (aka “Arlo”) in the past, so I thought I’d pass along this new rendering that’s been posted on the ColeJenest and Stone website.

As you can see, Trinity Triangle is very much a triangle.  It’s parking deck entrance/exit is along Trinity Place and the parking deck is backed up against East Howard (which we all know already from the real world version).  It looks like there will be an interior courtyard with a pool and a fair amount of landscaping along the three surrounding streets (Howard, Church and Trinity)

What else do you all see that’s new/of interest?

Busy day on the retail front!

Decaturish is reporting that Dairy Queen is set to sign a lease at the under-construction Trinity Triangle development in the coming weeks.  The fate of the Momin family’s franchise has been in question since the stand alone location was closed and demolished last year.

Also of note from the Decaturish post – apparently the Trinity Triangle development has a new name – “Arlo”.  You can check out Arlo yourself on the Centro Development website.

Rendering courtesy of ColeJenest & Stone

A recent post on the AJC reported that the three ongoing apartment developments in downtown Decatur (315 West Ponce, Trinity Triangle and Paces Clairemont) would add a total of 600 units to the city.

While 600 new residences in such a short amount of time is certainly interesting – and worth discussion – what’s even more interesting is the bedroom breakdown.  (I realize that sort of sounds like a some kind of illicit activity)

Of the 600 apartments being constructed, 70% of them are 1 bedroom.  Of the remaining, 29% are 2 bedroom and just 1% are three bedroom.

We followed up with Assistant City Manager Lyn Menne regarding the reason why a city with such a self-destructive appeal for families is building so many 1 bedrooms. She replied…

It’s all about market and pricing but we were also encouraging developers away from larger units for fear of impact on schools.  However, the real driver was market.

The market driver explanation is interesting, since the limited case study of the Place on Ponce has shown that there is currently greater demand for 2 bedroom apartments than 1 bedrooms in the current market.  (Though as of yesterday, it sounds like all the 1 bedrooms have also leased)

But perhaps that’s a short-sighted view and the real goal of the developers is to cater to the underserved market of young singles and retirees who currently have few options inside the city limits.  Regardless, the overwhelming majority of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments is certainly good news for the city’s school system, which is struggling to keep up with rising enrollment.

Trinity Triangle, Trinity Place, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Jan)

Check out this new rendering of the Trinity Triangle development that we discovered on ColeJenest & Stone website.  ColeJenest & Stone are providing civil engineering and landscape architecture services for the project.

They also recently sent us an interesting, aerial view of the project [see below] via Twitter and said…

Construction progressing at Decatur’s Trinity Triangle & should be completed by end of year