Bloglanta

Tonight February 24th and tomorrow, the 25,  ‘The Meeting‘ is playing and you should go see it.  Moreover, when you do, pay attention to everything.

For those unfamiliar with the play, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Martin Luther King Jr. battle mentally and physically in a Harlem Hotel Room on Valentines day 1965.  They come to a truce of sorts, but each set of ideas is explored and it is something to see how relevant some of the ideas are today and how some of them have indeed passed on to history.

Sweet Auburn Theatre company is presenting this show in Javaology at 466 Edgewood Ave at the corner of Boulevard.  There is parking behind the building.

They are upstairs and you can bring your coffee into the show!  Being upstairs has the advantage of making the show more realistic.  The atmosphere of the room helps with the production.  You hear an urban street and boulevard is a character in the show.  You also hear and see what Shabazz and King were thinking and feeling as they went forward in time.

So you have a show, a space, and a place all growing together.  Despite all the attention paid to Auburn Avenue, it’s Edgewood that is developing.  High end clothing boutiques, restaurants, coffee houses, and with the introduction of theatre at the space, a growing arts component which will only feed things.

This is all to the good, but it happens in stark relief from the area around it.  North of Auburn Avenue, past the Freedom Parkway exit for roughly a mile, Boulevard is blighted.   Auburn Avenue has never had the renaissance people wanted for it.  This is a case where government planning has not helped.  Yet, Edgewood prospers and does so because people think they can make a go of it.  They’ve found cool spaces to renovate and transform and they can afford it.  The road leads straight into Chandler Park and so there is some customer base close by.

The coffee house is the capstone of the first holon of the redevelopment of the area.  It shows there is enough upper socio-economic traffic to support a spot of that type and in thriving it provides for a necessary service to launch the next step of development with better housing and the re-introduction of more non-retail business into the area.

All of this has happened without the deep investments and governmental workings that have gone into Underground or to Auburn Avenue.  It’s all happened from market demand and that should make all the libertarians smile.  They should.  While markets can’t be the sole determinant in deciding where aid, development money, and particular kinds of business go, they often rescue downtrodden and blighted areas and rebuild them.  It happened in East Atlanta, Castlebury Hill, and Decatur.

The business and real estate people would be smart to take notice of the theatre company.  By bringing in new folks, the theatre company grows awareness and interest in the community all in a positive light.  If cities such as Lawrenceville can think that way, it would behoove folks such as Charles Brewer and other developers to think about the importance of arts in their communities as well.

An amazing thing happened on Thursday.  The Inman Park MARTA station’s northern parking lot was full.  Absolutely full.  Before this year, this was a rarity at best.  This shows some progress and some problems.  First, it shows that MARTA ridership is on the rise and that demand for frequent service will cause people to drive a little further.

That demonstrates that MARTA should seriously consider extending trains on the Proctor Creek Line to the Decatur Station.  That would both help move people to one of Atlanta’s top restaurant destinations and let more people use the Eastlake Station while still capturing the benefits of two trains.

It also shows that demand is still high for parking.  Some of that comes from the closure of the Parking Lot for the King Memorial Station.   There used to be parking there, but it has now been leased to Grady Hospital for their employees and the public can no longer use it, but mostly it comes from the general publics discomfort with buses.  That discomfort is three fold.  First, because MARTA does not get enough financing, it has had to consistently pull back on its schedule.  The frequent changes in schedule have also made people leery of the buses.  Lastly there are social economic issues that still remain.

Still, it’s good to see the system prosper and to witness people using it in smart ways.

Time to introduce you to a couple of new real-estate jargon terms that are going to effect the way we think about development.

The first is ‘greyfield’ space. This term was developed by Price Waterhouse/Coopers to describe commercial space generating less than $150 per square foot per year. Since the term’s introduction, the meaning has been expanded to describe retail space that has lost significant value and is ripe to see the current structures on these spaces demolished and replaced with new retail and mixed use environments. Developers often prefer ‘greyspace’ to ‘greenspace’ because pristine undeveloped land is scarce and zoning battles are far tougher to win. Often, these spaces are ‘dead malls’ which already have substantial acreage.

In Atlanta, Atlantic Station is most obvious success story. North Dekalb Mall, Avondale Mall, Greenbriar Mall, and South Dekalb Mall may well be on their way to ‘greyfield-dom’.

The second term is ‘Power Center‘. This is a commercial facility which explodes the development and the growth of the community around it. It’s not just a mall, it’s the center of gravity for the community, causing big box stores, restaurants, and other developments to come in where previously there were none. Lenox Square is clearly the longest running power center in Atlanta, though in recent years, Stone Crest is the most obvious example. When it went up the entire Lithonia community changed and has been an economic engine for both Rockdale and S.E. Dekalb County.

What happens when you have both trends at once? While technically not Greyspace, both Gwinnett Place and Cumberland Mall in Cobb have lost some of their luster and have not seen rents climb as fast as other malls in the community. Yet they still remain power centers. The Vinings Jubilee draws directly of cumberland’s gravity as does the Galleria Center and the other businesses along 41. Gwinnett Place has seen both big box stores such as Fry’s and Nightclubs such as Wild Bill’s join the area even as the mall itself became less popular.

The question becomes who will drive the re-imagination of the malls? Will their status as power centers slowly rebuild their customer base or will the other retailers in the area appeal to zoning boards and developers to actively change the nature of the structures so that the centers of gravity they provide do not become blackholes which in 10 years suck all the life out of the communities?

Another question is: Do we want all new large scale developments to be power centers and how will the power center notion effect our thinking? Clearly, there are serious externality questions that come into play. If a majority of Lithonia and Rockdale County residents benefit from the new power center, should the developers receive favorable treatment? Is that a tool other communities will use to entice new developers into their communities? What are the right answers here?

These are ideas and questions the Atlanta Regional Commission will begin to have to deal with especially as the number of governments increases and begin to compete to have retail to build their tax bases.

Enough with the Malls already! The same thing is happening all over Atlanta. Tons of malls are going up. They are being called “New Urban Shopping Districts”, but really, they’re malls. Not only are they reducing already depleted green space, but in almost every case, there are no community amenities in these things. Joni Mitchell would be so proud! There are no libraries, no live theatres, music halls, houses of worship, parks, or government offices. They in no way help the public or serve people who do not have a direct shopping interest in the location.

This is a complete failure of zoning. It’s not even a lack of zoning. Houston had that for years and seems to have done at least as well. No. This is what happens when zoning fails completely; when the exceptions are the rule. Neighborhood Planning Units have concerns? Buy off whomever you need to in order to get your project built. Moreover, the fact that there are literally scores of governments through which you can manuveur means you can pit one against another! Want to build in Dunwoody but the Dekalb County Commission won’t give you as many housing units as you’d like? Move to Sandy Springs! Each government wants development so badly, developers play the system.

Because no agency with power has the ability to look across even civic lines, let alone county ones, Developers have a built in guarantee of success! The collected interest of the people of Metro Atlanta don’t stand a chance.

Who will stop the madness? Certainly not the state. Sales Tax revenue uber alles is the watch word for this Governor! No retail project be denied!

What would it take to fix this? A uniform code of zoning for the state and giving the Atlanta Regional Commission power of zoning over everything except the City of Atlanta, which, because it has the urban core, faces a completely different set of challenges.

This uniform code should mandate green space preservation, that projects first serve socio-economically under served areas, and that all projects have a truly substantial public component. Want to build 250,000 sq feet of retail space with yet another Publix and Baby Gap? Fine! But Dad’s Garage needs 10% of your space for a new theater complex and room for another Department of Labor branch would be nice too.

Any chance the legislature would actually give the ARC this power? Nahh….. So, eventually, one of 3 Federal restrictions will come crashing down.

1) It might be the EPA. Our regions’ air quality may get so bad that all development must depend on non vehicular improvements to let it go forward. We might lose highway money and if you can’t build a street, you can move your development forward.
2) It might be the Army Corps of Engineers who declare that they’ll release no more water to Georgia. No water, no development
3) It might be federal courts who look at this madness and enjoin any non federal government from issuing a construction permit until the water and pollution mess can be worked out.

What would happen if we really did restrict new retail growth? First, older retail spaces would be remodeled and updated. Places like South Dekalb Mall, Market Square at North Dekalb, and North East Plaza would find their space much more valuable. Second, our smaller towns would continue to see their previously existing retail space grow more valuable and would revitalized. New development that did occur would be much more community oriented and actually take the concerns of the community into account.

The downside? Retail rents would likely go up making it harder for independents to compete. Underserved communities might still not get as much attention as they deserve and close scrutiny might well be required to limit the amount of graft. In the long run however, we might have fewer abandon strip shopping centers and those shopping centers that were built would have a stronger community focus. That’s worth it.

In Atlanta, there is little appreciation for the power of infrastructure. Atlanta’s residents would rather fight individual battles in the relatively inconsequential zoning wars than get into the real meat of defining a community’s character. Even major infrastructure projects like the Beltline get reduced to the individual projects proposed within the TAD boundary.

A recent article by John Sugg points out the most fundamental flaws in how Atlanta’s residents think about the Beltline.

The Mason project is not perfect. The oversupply of parking spaces within the proposed Piedmont Park towers will inflate the project’s cost to an amount greater than the project’s real value. Assumptions about the local infrastructure are being made ahead of actual decisions about the local infrastructure.

Meanwhile, in New York, Manhattan is not the only place where you can find tall condo towers next to parks. (Central Park and its surrounding developments have been a frequent image in the minds of Mason’s critics.) In Brooklyn, new developments are cropping up to accomodate new masses of people moving into the borough. Among these developments, I caught this tall tower next to a public park:

Granted, the tower isn’t as tall as Mason’s proposed development. What I saw with my own eyes was a development that fit within the existing infrastructure, which included a tight street grid with public parks integrated within the local urban fabric. Some of the parks, such as the one above, included sports fields. Others were simply parks with trees, grass and very cute and friendly squirrels. For the most part, Mason’s proposed development will fit within the context of the proposed infrastructure for the area. As more people move back to the city, single family homes will become increasingly out of context.

A square may have all equal sides, but in Decatur, some sides of the square are more equal than others.  The Decatur Square is undergoing changes, but some businesses are suffering disproportionately.  If you’re on the southeast side of the square, your business is in trouble.  Some businesses have already left the square. Others that have long anchored that part of the square, such as Sage, are faultering. 
Many of these businesses are complaining that the project is taking longer than promised and that no support is coming to offset the losses the construction has created.  Both MARTA and the City could help here.  MARTA could give them free advertising on the system to help strengthen these establishments.  Once construction is completed, they might also have new ad clients.  The City could relieve them of some of their sales tax burdens until the new plaza has been completed and life returns to normal. 
In the meantime, folks can support good places such as Sage & Raging Burrito to keep them going.  Nothing better than altruistic dining. 

Once again, the AJC tries to pretend there could be some silver bullet solution to solve the woes of Underground Atlanta. They ask the question in their blog: What’s the solution for Underground?

Well, the nightclub thing didn’t work. What should we try next?

This was my answer:

If you walk through Underground while it’s raining, you’ll find dozens of buckets catching the water leaking through the infrastructure. Fixing the leaks would be a start.Go to the food court and there’s some jerk at a Chinese to-go place yelling at everybody that Underground is unsafe, and by the way, try this orange chicken, hey hey are you deaf. Throwing the jerk out would be another good step.

Walking along Lower Alabama Street, you’re inundated with a huge crowd of carts. I’m not sure which is more difficult — navigating around the carts, or navigating around the other people who are trying to navigate around the carts. Has the fire marshall seen this crowded setup? Get rid of half those carts, and walking through Underground will be a better experience.

Open up the space above the food court to offices — restaurants and retail cannot survive there.

The tunnel between the 5 Points station and Underground looks much bettter than it used to. But as long as those fans are there, I’ll still refer to it as the “ghetto tunnel.” Put in a more subtle ventillation system and that will be an improvement.

There used to be plans to build apartments above Upper Alabama. Scrapping those plans was not a good idea. I don’t care what they think the market looked like at the time. Take a risk, for once, or else nothing will happen except Atlanta re-hashing this issue five years from now.

The surrounding area needs a facelift, but there’s not much Underground can do about that without the help of city officials, developers, and MARTA.

MARTA should take the whole ugly top off the Five Points station and allow a developer to build a couple of mixed-use buildings right there on top of the station. The center of a major transit system should be a center of activity, not an architectural statement of modernist crap.

The plaza between 5 Points station and Marietta Street, aka “Despair Alley,” needs flowers.

There are plenty more things to be done in the area, and there are some good people trying to work out downtown’s issues. The folks at Central Atlanta Progress have a great deal of energy and optimism for downtown. Having once met Dan O’Leary, I can certainly say the same about him.

There are two sad things about downtown that will continue to serve as a drag to the area more than the perception of crime. First, there are not enough people with the same energy and optimism for downtown. To get the perception issue out of the way, Central Atlanta Progress should stop trying to defend downtown and start engaging the public more toward a shared vision of downtown’s future.

The second drag for downtown is the lack of market leaders. There are too many market followers in the development community. Before the Olympics, no developers could be found to build any residential units in the area. The developers believed there was no market for residential units downtown, ignoring the fact there there were hardly any units to speak of in the first place. Naturally, there was no market to live there because there was no supply of housing. With the opening of the Healy, Muse’s, and others, developers began to realize the market potential, which remains unmet. Consider this:

• Sembler keeps building faux-urban crap with huge parking lots in their intown developments.
• Wayne Mason wants to build huge condo buildings in Piedmont Park, and provide 2.5 to 3 parking spaces per unit.
• Atlantic Station is built on top of a huge parking deck, and they gave MARTA trouble for trying to re-route the #10 bus to go through their development. (To their credit, Atlantic Station may be pushing for a “Midtown Loop” when the Atlanta Streetcar is built.)
• Surface parking lots are still in abundance in the downtown area.

My conclusion: Atlanta’s developers remain a bunch of wussy dinosaurs. They joined with a number of prominent local officials and paid the AJC to publish a boldly weak statement on what Atlanta’s future should look like. (The officials were later purchased by the roadbuilding lobby.) Since October 2004 (when the report was published), developers have continued to act in their market-following ways. It’s time to take a risk, my friends: stop building parking lots and start rebuilding downtown. You’ll profit from it, and I’ll be happy for you.

MARTA has installed the Breeze Card system in its stations.   The immediate side effects of this are a good thing. MARTA will not have as many fare jumpers because the new fare gates are higher and more automated.  Instead, MARTA can use its in-station personnel to help keep things cleaner, safer, and more customer service oriented.  That’s something MARTA needs.  Whether the Breeze Card is good for the random MARTA rider is more of an Aquinian question.  On its own the Breeze card is neither good nor evil, only to purpose to which MARTA will put it makes it so. 
This could be a great thing.  If MARTA uses the breeze card in such a way to simply make things more convenient, it will be wonderful.  If people can buy day passes, 3 day passes and so forth, the Breeze card will improve ridership.  It would also be great if people who bought large purchases received a discount on the value of their rides in the way that those buying 20 tokens now receive a 15% percent discount. 
What’s sadly more likely is that MARTA will try to use this system to move to a distance based fare schedule.  One good thing about MARTA is that no matter where you’re going, the price is the same.  Everyone knows the price and it’s the same regardless of where you travel.  This lets people who could drive decide not to.  If the price from Sandy Springs to Omni goes from the current $1.75, to say $2.50, it will make driving far more cost competitive.   In order to remain strong, MARTA must capture the marginal markets; those people who might drive or take MARTA.  Distance based fares will also make parking at in town stations more crowded.  Imagine what the parking wars will be like at Lindbergh if riding to Lenox, Brookhaven, and Doraville goes up 50 cents a ride. 
Lastly, the people who could really be punished are those who can least afford it.  People who ride buses are going to get hit when they get on the bus and when they get on the train.  MARTA needs to make a commitment to the public that the installation of the fare system will increase efficiency and that the value of the efficiency will be passed on to the riders. 

Lots of people are excited about the Beltline (myself include), but I think we need to be careful in the midst of all the excitement, too. I don’t want Atlantans to make the mistake of betting it all on the Beltline. Sure, the Beltline is a great project, and a very important one - but it’s a long-term project, spanning 25 years. We need viable transit solutions in the meantime.

This may seem like common sense, but sometimes common sense can get away from us in the face of new and exciting possibilities.

I often find myself wondering why, instead of looking for a bunch of new transit possibilities, we don’t just expand on what we already have - the MARTA heavy rail.

Subway and el systems have stood the test of time in other major U.S. cities (not to mention abroad); it’s time for Atlanta, as the nexus of the South, to catch up. When it comes to Atlanta and MARTA, sometimes I feel like a parent of an unruly child - you give them love and encouragement, and you watch as they stumble, knowing they could accomplish so much more, and hoping they finally realize their potential one day.

Recently I heard someone say that the problem with MARTA isn’t the coverage area, but the access. I still think MARTA should have more coverage other than just north-south and east-west, but I definitely agree that creating more access points to the existing lines should be a priority. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say I think it should take precedence over expanding the coverage area. I don’t know if building new stations along existing rail lines would be less expensive than laying new track, but I think it’s worthwhile.

Station density along the rail lines should resemble that of the small area of midtown and downtown where stations are actually within walking distance of one another (e.g., 5 blocks & change from Arts Center Station to Midtown Station). The distance from Arts Center Station to Lindbergh Station, however, is ridiculous - certainly not walkable.

In Manhattan the average distance between subway stations is 7-10 blocks. I know Atlanta isn’t New York, but is it really unreasonable to make the comparison? Atlanta is the metropolitan area of the South, and it’s an old and established city; why should we not expect the same things from it that we expect of major Northern cities?

General Motors has announced it is closing the Doraville Plant. 
While this is good news for investors, it’s impact on Atlanta will be as big and bad as a Hummer.  There are a number of losers.  First are the workers, their families, and all the suppliers who helped the plant run.  Second is Dekalb County, which will see a loss of tax base.  There will also need to be negotiations over what to do with the property.  Finding another company that would like to manufacture products here would be ideal, but if that cannot happen, perhaps Georgia Perimeter College might relocate a campus so that it’s much nearer a MARTA station. 
The biggest loser, however, is likely to be Peachtree Dekalb Airport.  For years, airport supporters have pointed out that the airport is an important economic engine for the county and has been vital in getting parts and people to the GM facility.  With the facility gone, one of the most obvious and tangible examples of its importance vanishes.  The airport remains a vital county resource and has been around since World War II, yet many people want it removed completely.  Ironically, all of these folks bought their property long after the airport was there.  Still, the Doraville plant’s closing will add hearten those who want the airport to close. 
The Doraville plant closure also brings forth a major test for County CEO Vernon Jones.  If he can get out front on this issue and create a plan that will allow the county, business, the City of Doraville, and the populace that lives there to benefit from the conversion of the auto plant, he could lay the groundwork for a future run for larger office or as major business player.  If he does nothing, Jones will have failed and voters all over the state will remember.