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I live around the corner from The Battery, and my observations are; they definitely need more retail. Maybe one or two brands that will be a draw for shoppers. I'm hoping that some of the empty store fronts start fill up soon to give it more of a community feel. The addition of Waterloo Records was a pleasant surprise especially since I collect vinyl, I also anticipate the opening of the Rocky Patel cigar lounge. Maybe addition of the movie theater, Aloft hotel and market will increase foot traffic in the development although a Trader Joes, Sprouts or even Aldi's or Lidl would be a better choice then what is proposed. But the primary thing missing from the Battery is high-end coffee shop. Think Dancing Goats or Octane. That would definitely create foot traffic within the development.
I only vaguely remember the area from my summer working in the Galleria area. Do you think the proximity to Cumberland Mall and Akers Mill Square hurts the battery in terms of putting retail in? I don't remember what all is right there.
Seems to me it's on the upswing. I'm optimistic about it. It's well-located in the scheme of things.
That area along Cobb Pkwy to the north has been kinda rough for years. I think the Battery has really helped, especially for that side of 285. Hopefully Windy Hill Rd and all that has hit it's trough and rebounds. But it's definitely not headed downhill right now.
You can mitigate Mr. Taft's commentary with the simplistic "restaurants close all the time" argument all you want; however, my focus was the assertion by him that for the money paid, the product is not being delivered. Traffic is inconsistent and the status quo simply isn't enough for that to be remedied in the near future. My inference is that the plan may have to be redrawn, perhaps radically. That's why the Atlantic Station comparison, as this is the very thing they've been doing in order to solidify their base.
There's nothing simplistic about it all 19 to 26% restaurants literally fail after a year or so it's an extremely tough competitive industry, even if The Battery was busy with Foot traffic all the time still doesn't guarantee it success.
And I'm not arguing against the grounds their can and needs to improve in area, I'm saying it's new development less than 2 years old, of course not everything is lease and there still more develop, This happen with Atlantic station and Avalon early years, Basically your not just being critical but hypercritical, expecting way too much, too fast.
So all that happen is this thread turn into celebration for The Cobb hatters, we not even discussing the aspect of "high rents" or even discussing much what even need to improve, but " Trouble at the Battery" is over stating that negative hysteria. There shades of grey between from being prefect to "Trouble" The Battery is successful you just highlighting areas it need to improve on to become better.
The "I told you so" is a nice feeling. But the real entertainment is watching the folks that are blindly pro-Cobb scramble to defend this bad project at all costs.
These same sort of terrible projects happen in the city but I am far from defending them, I am usually the one complaining. And when Cobb does good things like showing support for real transit, I am right there to cheer them on.
Folks in Cobb need to acknowledge that Cobb is flawed and this was a bad deal / project and focus their efforts fixing the underlying issues that are causing it (county leadership, subsidies, budget, transit, walkablility, denser zoning, etc...).
That I am the first thing that comes to Cobbians' minds when they read this sort of news (even before I say a single word) is flattering, but y'all need to move past your us-vs-them infaliable-Cobb-clique mentality.
All of us here want what is best for the metro area. I could care less what side of an imaginary line a bad project falls on, buts let's start be acknowledging those flaws and then working to minimize them.
there is no "you told us so" this isn't even a argument you ever made, your argument was The Braves ripped Cobb tax payers, your argument is all over the place. Because don't have a center you just jump at anything negative about cobb
1. You made clear a long time ago you hated Braves left the CoA
2. You made clear a long time ago your pretty much against all suburban growth, and only want CoA to do so.
3. Even if you dislike a project you should want a project to succeed, you actively root against which something different entirely
So lets try this again
- Metro Atlanta is projected to gain 3 million by 2040 according to the ARC...
- Do really think the CoA can gain 3 million by itself..........
- No
- Again let just say Atlanta double and grew to a million. This already suggesting CoA got significant share.
- But that still leaves 2.4 million left........
- Other wise even if Atlanta grew to high density, The CoA alone still want be enough to prevent significant sprawl.
- So what would be next best thing?....
- instead of that 3 million to sprawl out to new exurbs, The inner counties like Cobb, Gwinnett, to gain.. and pick up the tab.
The error with your answer I root for core "Atlanta" is your answer is already consider. but with 3 million your answer is not enough.... You have to pick one
- Root for Cobb growth
- Root for Metro Atlanta to sprawl to Chattanooga
And you could not answer, you kept slashing that out saying the "CoA" as if city of Atlanta was going in 3 million in next few decades to come alone. CoA alone can not slow sprawl it needs help by surrounding core counties, All you do is say is while I disagree with way Cobb is going about things I'm rooting for Cobb to succeed and become more urban but you couldn't. The entire thread of posters ended up calling you out on being irrational............ Now I guess where pretending this didn't happen.
In fact us vs them comment is something I said to you. because you been told comments is anti regionalism,
In another thread I pointed out your negative clumping, if you disagree with the bad leaders in Cobb, well guess what? leaders around the Cumberland area want transit and etc, but yet Cumberland is the area you criticize the most. your not " I am right there to cheer them on" So you say you just hate the bad leadership of Cobb, but yet Don't side with the progressive areas either, but rather ignore it and generalize the county, And take that generalizing and criticize the progressive areas the most. This echo back to above your just irrvaltional and anti Cobb.
You can't just make stuff 2 years later and pretend what was discuss never was, There's a reason posters call you anti Cobb, due to fact you made it clear your anti cobb.
To pretend this is just normal restaurant turnover at The Battery is dishonest.
It is not like this is the first closure there. You got at least "Todd English Tavern" and "Archie's" that have closed as well.
The latter said "Hugh thought that the restaurant was doing a good job and chef Alex Bolduc was executing some great food, but the business just was not viable for the long term" about it's closing.
So while it was hinted at in "Archie's" closing, "Feed Fried Chicken + Such" is just the first to directly say that The Battery has not solved the classic problem of areas surrounding major stadiums: they end up dead zones outside of game days. Especially if they are car-centric. the masses of people at games want to walk around to things near by. But regular day-to-day people in car-dependent areas will choose the place with surface parking right in front of the door over parking in a deck down the street.
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Originally Posted by chiatldal
There's nothing simplistic about it all 19 to 26% restaurants literally fail after a year or so it's an extremely tough competitive industry, even if The Battery was busy with Foot traffic all the time still doesn't guarantee it success.
And I'm not arguing against the grounds their can and needs to improve in area, I'm saying it's new development less than 2 years old, of course not everything is lease and there still more develop, This happen with Atlantic station and Avalon early years, Basically your not just being critical but hypercritical, expecting way too much, too fast.
So all that happen is this thread turn into celebration for The Cobb hatters, we not even discussing the aspect of "high rents" or even discussing much what even need to improve, but " Trouble at the Battery" is over stating that negative hysteria. There shades of grey between from being prefect to "Trouble" The Battery is successful you just highlighting areas it need to improve on to become better.
I don't consider my position hypercritical, nor do I 'hate' Cobb County (). I also find it difficult to see what arbitrary statistics on restaurant failure rates have to do with the points I'm making with regards to the Battery. What I am saying is that the developers of Battery Park (and the people that support it with their hard-earned tax dollars) might consider the criticisms as constructive instead of wringing their hands over the critics themselves.
As for the fact that Battery Park is only two years in, there are developments like Ponce City Market and Krog Street Market that were thriving at that point in their history. And true that Atlantic Station had its startup challenges (many of which had nothing to do with their ability to initially maintain consistent traffic), but per the article that I posted earlier Atlantic Station is actively addressing these problems. Perhaps Battery Park should apply the same level of soul-searching to themselves.
The clear challenge to BP is that they have created a development that has as its centerpiece a facility that is empty a majority of the time. Perhaps what it should do is take the stadium out of the equation and look at itself as on the same playing field as every other similarly scaled mixed-use project in town.
Because don't have a center you just jump at anything negative about cobb
I have been a critic of this deal / project (and many other similar projects) since the day it was announced exactly because it is the "center" of what I have been saying from day 1:
Development should be market-based (un-subsidized), incremental (many small private parties involved making so changes in the long term), (which results in) more walkible, transit centeric development. All things STP is not.
So yeah, I have said and will continue to say negative things about Cobb until that changes.
Also, my problem with the leadership in Cobb is not simply if they have an "R" or "D" next to their name.
Just because Cobb has a disproportional recent list of bad projects does not mean my hate of them is because of which side of an imaginary line it is on. It just might be that Cobb has a disproportional recent list of bad projects. That said, my least favorite project in the metro right now has got to be the stadium bridge over Northside. The city would be better off selling it for scrap. Neither should have been happened in the first place, but now that it is there, large parts of the Battery make sense to keep around in some form going forward. But they will likely need to accept that much of the commercial spots there will not be able to sustainably operate outside of game-days since it will not be able to achive a "critical mass" walkable, connected node in the near future. In fact the distortion from the stadium makes that connected organic development much harder.
The county should try to claw-back as much of the subsidy for the project as they can get. The best thing for the area might be if the Braves do in-fact only stay there 20 years as is much joked about. Heck, Summerhill would be in a much better place today if they had started recovering after only 20 years of Braves.
Um, the Battery is very walkable development. Yeah there's no train connection, but there's bus transit connection- which is the same setup as Turner Field had. And this development is more walkable than that desert sea of parking lots was.
I mean let's criticize by all means, but let's criticize fairly. Resorting to lies and dishonesty is sad. But typical of certain posters here and I'm not at all surprised.
Um, the Battery is very walkable development. Yeah there's no train connection, but there's bus transit connection- which is the same setup as Turner Field had. And this development is more walkable than that desert sea of parking lots was.
The Battery does a good job of being inwardly walkable. But I am talking area-wide walkablility.
The Battery today is walkable like a mall is walkable. But they need to fix major structural issues to make the area walkable. Blank walls face almost every external street around The Battery.
And like suburban malls, until the structural problems in the area are solved, The Battery will need to look at the same sort of strategies small malls are deploying today to keep and sustain a mix of tenants. Which, as the many mall and retail closures indicate, is a challenging task.
Lots of chef-driven restaurants will not be able to thrive outside of game days there.
Also, even though Turner Field had much better transit connectivity including rail many people (long) walked to, it clearly should not be a model to be followed for a healthy neighborhood / retail development.
Yeah, the area is suburban and not as compact and dense as the middle of the city. But it's the suburbs and not the middle of the city, so. That's kind of not the most fair comparison.
But still, I expect the direction the area is going is definitely more walkability and density, and definitely more transit and some kind of mass transit at some point.
The development is not bad at all. Some criticism is fine sure, but some praise is due at least equally.
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). I also find it difficult to see what arbitrary statistics on restaurant failure rates have to do with the points I'm making with regards to the Battery. What I am saying is that the developers of Battery Park (and the people that support it with their hard-earned tax dollars) might consider the criticisms as constructive instead of wringing their hands over the critics themselves.
