Ruby and Michael Lamb didn’t think too much about being almost the only passengers on the Atlanta Streetcar early on Saturday afternoon. “I think they built it for tourists,” said Michael Lamb, visiting from Macon with his wife.
Tag: Development
Posted inLatest News
Here’s what Georgia offered Amazon: start with $2 billion and “Kindle Rd.”
The contest among more than a dozen cities in the U.S. and Canada to host Amazon’s second headquarters is over and Atlanta didn’t win. But the list of incentives the state offered — and the list of restaurants where they took Amazon — became a public document upon the loss.
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Atlanta misses likely spike in housing costs as Amazon locates headquarters elsewhere
The good news about Atlanta not getting picked for Amazon’s second or third headquarters is that the region doesn’t face the prospect the wsj.com framed in this headline: Amazon’s Move to Long Island City Sparks Condo Frenzy.
Posted inColumns
Downtown Connector’s bridges evolving from spartan crossings to garden-like settings
Atlanta’s Downtown Connector is a bit like a house that’s been expanded with additional rooms, in the form of bridges, and now there’s a lot of conversation about adding a second floor – in the form a platform above the highway that would host greenspace and buildings – and sprucing up the 10th Street Bridge.
Posted inColumns
The Gulch – Gulp, what now?
By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, professor of the practice of planning at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture and former Atlanta planning commissioner
With the Atlanta City Council’s action to approve the CIM deal to develop the Gulch in Downtown Atlanta, what should city officials and citizens be doing to follow up the many, many complicated steps, approvals, and financial transactions that will now persist over a 20-plus year timeframe?
As it happens, we have a precedent.
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Telework Week offers incentives to join alternative commute options
Gov. Nathan Deal has proclaimed Nov. 12 through Nov. 16 as Telework Week, and again this year the event provides incentive programs that encourage drivers to log their alternative to driving to work alone in a vehicle.
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MARTA’s Kensington Station up for development, if zoning can be resolved
MARTA is seeking a developer to build a mixed use project, complete with affordable housing, at its Kensington Station, which is located in eastern DeKalb County between Avondale Estates and I-285. One potential stumbling block is the existing zoning of the property.
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FedEx opens super-sized distribution center in once-rural Jackson County
FedEx is to cut the ribbon today on a distribution center in Jackson County that is large even by the latest standards of super-sized warehouses. Its location underscores Jackson’s emerging role as a major transit hub in metro Atlanta and its current effort to update its long-range transit and transportation plan.
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Spaceport Camden: FAA fails to reveal potential hazards, environmental group SELC contends
The Federal Aviation Authority has ignored a request for information about potential hazards related to rocket launches from a proposed spaceport in Camden County, along Georgia’s coast, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta by the Southern Environmental Law Center.
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New reports: Metro Atlanta’s housing prices rise, further pressuring lower cost homes
A report released Tuesday suggests there’s no reason to suspect prices will decline anytime soon in the rental apartment sector. This would seem to increase pressure on advocates of affordable housing as they seek to entice developers to build units and price them at below-market rates
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Battle over Plant Vogtle costs Jacksonville a downgrade in credit ratings, outlook
The battle among the owners of Plant Vogtle over its continued construction has led to a lowering of the credit ratings of about $2.1 billion in bonds sold by Jacksonville, Fl. The concern is the city’s reliability to repay its debts, according to a rating action issued by Moody’s Investors Service.
Posted inColumns
Planned Chamblee Doraville CID to create sense of place, urgency for improvements
By Guest Columnist DAN REUTER, a longtime advisor on urban planning and community development in metro Atlanta and the founder/CEO of Reuter Strategy
Momentum is building for the creation of a new Community Improvement District in the cities of Chamblee and Doraville. Led by local commercial property owners and encouraged by the leadership of the cities of Chamblee and Doraville, a CID will help the community to leverage the existing assets to provide greater access and amenities.
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Clifton Corridor’s light rail service an ‘overnight success’ that took six decades
Overnight success takes about 20 years, or so goes the maxim. Sometimes it can take nearly 60 years, as in the case of the Clifton Corridor – where the newly approved plan to connect rail service dates to a map unveiled in 1961, when President Kennedy was in office.
Posted inColumns
Affordable housing goals meet market realities in proposed Atlanta developments
For starters, the monthly rent is to jump by nearly 50 percent at one proposed apartment complex that’s to replace a planned teardown of duplexes located north of Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. This is just one of several developments that may give members of the Atlanta City Council an opportunity to ponder aloud the city’s state of affordable housing.
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Mayor took donation from Gulch developer as critics focus on Trump connection
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms accepted a $500 contribution during her run-off campaign last year from an employee of the company that plans to develop the Gulch. This contribution has been overshadowed by other aspects of the campaign to slow the mayor’s push for a Monday vote by the Atlanta City Council.
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Plans to widen U.S 17 near Brunswick would ease access to Golden Isles
A highway expansion project near Brunswick will require the use of land that’s part of the historic Hofwyl-Broadfield rice plantation. The road project is to improve access from I-95 to the Golden Isles and the regional airport.
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Atlanta voices discontent over process for picking MARTA’s $2.5 billion project list
The chair of the Atlanta City Council’s Transportation Committee says he is not happy with the way MARTA’s $2.5 billion expansion plan pits winners against losers, and he said City Hall will soon be releasing its thoughts on expansion proposals that are due for a vote by MARTA’s board on Oct. 4.
Posted inColumns
Georgia Aquarium’s financial support from Atlanta in 2009 led to soaring revenues
After Atlanta provided the Georgia Aquarium with $80 million in financing at favorable terms in 2009 to build a dolphin exhibit, the aquarium’s revenues soared by 23 percent, compared to the year before the exhibit opened. The return on the city’s latest financial support for the aquarium – up to $7.5 million – remains to be determined.
Posted inColumns
Three landmark events at Atlanta Stadium in the 1960s – Were you there?
By Guest Columnist BO HIERS, who has ‘semi-retired’ from a 35-year career in the reinsurance industry and now volunteers at the Atlanta History Center
It’s difficult to imagine Atlanta without a professional sports stadium, especially when you consider the Braves, Falcons, and Hawks are now proud owners of three of the newest and slickest stadiums and arenas anywhere. But that was the case in 1964. Cue Milwaukee Braves owner William Bartholomay and the National Football League (NFL). Attendance was sagging at County Stadium in Milwaukee, and the NFL was looking to expand its geographic footprint into Southern states. There were plenty of twists and turns along the way, but the Braves and Falcons were on the way.
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U.S. Mint honors ‘pristine’ Cumberland Island as feds consider allowing new houses, rockets overhead
Even as the U.S. Mint releases a new quarter to honor the “primitive, undeveloped character” of Cumberland Island, two other federal entities are considering proposals to shoot space rockets over Georgia’s coastal island and to develop houses there.
