The Wachovia Building Implosion
The old Wachovia building at Peachtree and North Ave. was imploded this past Saturday to make way for a new mixed-use condo tower. The old building was said to be a great example of modernist architecture. It featured a parking deck that took up more than half the site, a drive-thru bank (with a walk-up window that went unused for many years), and a single street-facing building entrance facing Peachtree St. That’s some great modernist (suburban-style) architecture.
Oh yeah, there was also a nice blank marble wall facing North Ave.
The new condo tower, the Premiere at Fox Plaza, will feature limited parking integrated into the building so that it’s less visible from the street, and street-facing retail. The initial landscape design concept shows a private greenspace facing Peachtree Street, which will eventually make way for a second tower.
While those who cry preservation-for-preservation’s-sake will miss the old building and condemn the new building for being new, they’ll never be able to explain why the historical significance of the old building (sentimentality) was great enough to trump the new development. What I’ll miss the least about that site will be the parking deck.
As a midtown resident who lives down the street from the site (and walks past it on a near-daily basis) I’m very excited about this new development. The experience of walking past what was there before was depressing, to say the least.
Speaking of which, since I do live down the street from the site, I had a chance to film the implosion. This is my take on the events of the morning of September 30, 2006.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Awesome! Just finished watching it. I like the music. It makes it feel like a mini-documentary (which it is, so that’s appropriate).
October 6th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
While I don’t have any emotional connections to the building or feel that it was that architecturally significant, I do object to the demolition on two points:
1. The Premiere at Fox plaze will actually front Ponce de Leon Ave. only the parking deck for the 615 Peachtree building needed to be demolished for this new project. The portion of the lot facing Peachtree and North will become a park until market demands allow for a second phase to be built. This is much like the useless plaze by Bellsouth a few blocks up Peachtree. With all the dead plaza space diagonally across the intersection at the BofA building, there is enough for this corner of town.
2. There are countless surface parking lots in town that beg to be redeveloped. I’d rather see them built up into something more usefull, urban, and appealing.
Otherwise, I do like the Cousins development. Let’s hope that it is a home run so they’ll start a second phase on Peachtree and North right away.
October 14th, 2006 at 10:44 am
[…] Check it out the video here […]
October 18th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
[…] - Wachovia imploded. Like you didn’t notice the completely bizarre skyline heading down North Ave from 75/85… […]
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
I worked in that sick building for 10 years. Atlanta is better off without it.