Piedmont Park Expansion Announced (Atlanta: insurance, homes, buying)

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by JMatl

Besides, great Cities invest in quality of life improvements. It's what separates us from lesser places.

Amen. This.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

...

Sky City: Retail History: Ansley Mall: Atlanta, GA

...

Ansley Mall's sister was the Crossroads shopping center (formerly Lakewood Mall) on the southside. Checkout pages 89, and 372-275 of this book:

The Atlanta City Design: Aspiring to the Beloved Community


Here is direct information about Ansley Mall's sister:

http://skycity2.blogspot.com/2007/02...d-mall_26.html

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Amen. This.

Célébrer le public. Absolument.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

I think rents are the obvious impediment here. So, no, I don't think an upscale mixed-use development is going to be amenable to what are essentially small-scale, mom and pop (or should I say pop and pop?) operations like these bars.
Aries posed this question earlier:



Honestly, I don't have a clue; certainly nowhere intown. Look at the traditional haunts for gay-oriented businesses: Midtown, Ansley and Cheshire Bridge. Everything in those neighborhoods is in play, and rents are skyrocketing. A lot of these bar owners depend on keeping rents (and drink prices) relatively low.
Probably their best bet for relocation is to find marginal neighborhoods that are relatively close in, like South Atlanta or the Buford Corridor. And who knows how long that they will remain affordable?
I recalled this old thread while I was writing. Not a bad suggestion, really.

//www.city-data.com/forum/atlan...in-area-2.html

You should visit the Historic Downtown Stone Mountain area yourself. The area code is 30083 and it's a hidden gem for safety and recreation. The small area is governed by local police who even have a free home check program for when you're away. Many people get this area confused with the greater Stone Mountain area which is not really safe. Just google Stone Mountain Village and call the visitor's center. The rents and housing prices are extremely reasonable. For safety, you have to look in the areas in the Historic section only... the numbered streets off of Main Street going towards the Stone Mountain Park. The area is also LGBT friendly with many establishments on James B. Rivers:
https://thegavoice.com/next-georgia-...tone-mountain/

I can see some (or lot of) gay bars concentrating in the northern part of Piedmont Heights along Monroe Drive, Piedmont Circle, and Monroe Place...or north of Cheshire Bridge on those side streets: Rockledge, Lambert, Liddell, Manchester, Niles Place.

I think it is important to maintain a core "gayborhood/gay village" in Atlanta. But then there should be gay/lesbian bars and venues that are also located in other urban neighborhoods and suburban towns.

One thing Atlanta has to remember: other world/international cities maintain their iconic gayborhoods/gay villages even after they become high dollar and expensive. Atlanta should do the same with "Greater Midtown," while still being a metro where gay/lesbian venues expand to new, emerging areas.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by joey86

They will be tearing out Hob Nob, the Shell station, and a few other buildings. In this picture, posted on Facebook by Alex Wan, the intersection at the top center is Piedmont and Monroe.

Originally Posted by JMatl

It's actually 13.8 acres. What you are referencing is just the 3.5 acre portion at the corner of Monroe & Piedmont.

Originally Posted by JMatl

Besides, great Cities invest in quality of life improvements. It's what separates us from lesser places.

Originally Posted by Iconographer

Which makes total sense.
I've been wishing that corner would become a capstone on the park for some time. By making it happen, Mayor Reed has earned major respect points from me this week.
Keep in mind that this will also take ABG to a whole new level as well.

Originally Posted by Iconographer

Much better.

My own vision for the property would be something that paid homage to the original Park Tavern Building (fka the clubhouse for the golf course), using stone and Terra Cotta tile.

http://www.thestudiobphotographyblog...8/DSC_5214.jpg

http://hitchhikershandbook.com/wp-co...sa-town-14.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...distillery.JPG

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/ima...stonehouse.jpg

http://interstateautobodyandtruck.co...building-1.jpg

And tear down that hideous addition, which provides no context to the original building whatsoever. A mistake from the get-go.

Here's an idea.

First read through this:

Easton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easton,_Georgia


Since we are talking about re-inventing the area, let's incorporate its true history. Just like how Little Five Points is not an official neighborhood, but the commercial district for two adjoining neighborhoods (Inman Park and Candler Park) and of close-by neighborhoods (Edgewood, Reynoldstown, Poncey-Highland, Druid Hills), the intersection of Monroe and Piedmont could be re-named and re-invented as the commercial district for three adjoining neighborhoods (Piedmont Heights, Morningside, Ansley Park) and close-by neighborhoods (Virginia Highland, Midtown). The commercial district could become a "Little Five Points" for that part of town...incorporating the name Easton.

How about...

Easton Crossroads?

Easton Circle?

Easton Junction?

or just Easton?


And, as it re-develops, you can still keep the past with the distant past and with the future. For example, Ansley Mall at Easton ____, etc.


The eventual Beltine station there could be called Easton/Easton Circle/Easton Junction/Easton Crossroads (choose one).

[samiwas1]

I mean, I think this is cool, but I find something very interesting here...

I advocate for taking disused industrial and places like trailer storage and transforming them into new dense neighborhoods, I'm told, "but those are people's businesses!!!"

They plan to take retail businesses and tear them down to spend a hundred million on new park area...cheers!!!

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

I mean, I think this is cool, but I find something very interesting here...

I advocate for taking disused industrial and places like trailer storage and transforming them into new dense neighborhoods, I'm told, "but those are people's businesses!!!"

They plan to take retail businesses and tear them down to spend a hundred million on new park area...cheers!!!

It's all about context.

[arjay57]

Despite being blasted by urbanists, shopping malls and strip centers serve an extremely important role in many places, including Atlanta. To a large extent, they are where the life of the city takes place.

Redevelopment is probably inevitable but we'll lose an element of our character in the process.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Redevelopment is probably inevitable but we'll lose an element of our character in the process.

It is and we do.

I simply think there's a smart way to do it, and a dumb way.

Smart is keeping the best elements of what's already there and attributing value to aesthetics, character, history and context.
Dumb is not doing it.
I do think Atlanta is getting smarter about it. I submit for your consideration Memorial Drive, Old Fourth Ward, Sweet Auburn, Ponce de Leon Blvd., South Downtown, Castleberry Hill and West Midtown. Thirty years ago, the 'solution' would have been to reduce them to brownfield and start over.

[Saintmarks]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

I'm fine with the strip mall and ugly buildings going. However I think the hobnob and the historic brick house (the one sort of shaped like a barn, just down Monroe) ought to be saved- the Hob Nob is an old gas station from the mid century and it could sort of grow to become a northern version of the park tavern if they start holding events in the new end of the park.

When are they going to get rid of the self-storage though? Just have 'the boy next door' border on the park and take all that junk behind it and make more parkland.

As for Ansley and the gay bars... if that goes, that neighborhood will have completed its transformation from a quirky, generally affordable & nationally known epicenter for the LGBTQ community into yet another sterile playground for the globe-trotting elite. Who would be excited about that loss? Only a rootless high income individual who would benefit from that arrangement, or perhaps an urbanist with some serious obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

For the former I wouldn't expect anything better. For the latter... if the existence of parking lots and one story buildings bothers you to the point that you believe it's worth pricing out everyone in the neighborhood and destroying a community just to see the parking lots go... Well, you're stepping on your own philosophy and prioritizing form so far over function that it makes me wonder whether you have some kind of weird blindness that allows you to see buildings and cities and not the people and communities that move through them. This isn't "the SIMS".

Reading the thread and gotta stop right here. One of the best comments I've ever read on CD. Almost made me tear up. You think I'm joking.