What caused Buckhead to have the skyline it has? (Atlanta: condos, how much)

[BMORE]

I was in ATL a few weeks back and was plain astonished that a area such as Buckhead actually has a nice skyline. I can understand why Midtown grew and has the skyline it has and I obviously understand Downtown but what caused Buckhead to have it's? It has one of the top 30 skylines in the US alone in my opinion, and it's better than some cities yet its suburban.

Any input would be appreciated.

[waronxmas]

A lot of factors led to Buckhead having the skyline it does, but here are the big ones ranked by their makeup of the skyline in that section of town:

Working Space

Buckhead is the second largest business district within the City of Atlanta (it's a part of the city, not a suburb as you have written) with ~150,000 office and retail workers. With the zoning laws as they are, almost all office and retail space is along Peachtree, Piedmont and Roswell road. With such limited space to work with, towers were built to accommodate all of the workers in the area. Interestingly enough though, high rise offices make up the smallest portion of the skyline.

Hotel Space

In the last few decades, Buckhead has emerged as a major hotel district catering to thousands of the millions of visitors the City has every year. To capitalize on having two MARTA rail stations next to a huge retail area in the main part of the Buckhead business district, developers clustered hotel space around the Lenox and Phipps areas of Peachtree. While there are a lot of hotels in Buckhead, they still make up only a tiny bit of the skyline of Buckhead.

Living Space

While Buckhead isn't densely developed over it's entire land area, it is all pretty much developed at this point with mostly high end residential property. Of course, that doesn't preclude people from wanting to live in Buckhead. So developers had but one choice: build up. The majority (I once did a calculation to the tune of 80%, but that's probably wrong now) of the high rises in Buckhead are condos. Pretty much the whole line from where Midtown ends until about Piedmont road (4 miles) are condos, and condos are also clustered in the Lenox/Phipps area right next to offices and hotels.

An even more interesting part of this is how fast this has occurred. Most of the high rises in Buckhead were built in the 00s, with a huge chunk of them going up in the middle part of the 00s onward.

To give you an idea, this was the Buckhead skyline around Lenox/Phipps in 2005:



And here it was in 2010:



It's kind of a sad thing the Great Recession came. Had it not, Buckhead would have around 20 or so more tall skyscrapers just from what was planned back then. One particular project right across the street from the Lenox MARTA station called for eight 40 story towers on two blocks.

[Adric]

I'm no buckhead history aficionado but I think it was a combination of Lenox Mall being one of the first malls in the US (and the largest in the south) when it opened, the allure of having an address that says "Peachtree", and the fact that it is served by two marta stations that led to it being what it is today.

First it was just Lenox, then offices opened nearby, then they started building the office buildings higher and higher, then the condos followed.

[filmsequal]

I remember when the 2008 recession hit, Several of those prominant skyscapers were less than halfway built and that skyline was dotted with cranes.

Those skyscapers are great meeting places that merge the educated northern suburbs with the interconnectedness to the city and airport, all in a modern luxurious environment.

The view of downtown atlanta is breathtaking from buckhead also. One cannot discount that! Ive been to conventions and even if u are from NYC or chicago the view from there is truly unique. Seeing those pointy downtown towers emerge from a forest of giant oaks can impress almost anybody.

[filmsequal]

Educated people dont want to deal with city life really. We prefer to be on top and viewing it, sure, just not IN it

[bornjacksonian]

Here is a view of Buckhead skyline I took from Vinings. Beautiful!! The combined skyline view (Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead) all together is breathtaking at night from Smyrna/Vinings area.

[cqholt]

Concentration of 2 MARTA stations and direct freeway connection to downtown and north fulton.

[tonygeorgia]

Watch how much it grows after BA is complete

[tonygeorgia]

Originally Posted by filmsequal

Educated people dont want to deal with city life really. We prefer to be on top and viewing it, sure, just not IN it

[futureATLien]

Originally Posted by filmsequal

Educated people dont want to deal with city life really. We prefer to be on top and viewing it, sure, just not IN it

I know plenty of educated people that live in the city, where do you think all of the yuppies are coming from?