Atlanta planning officials pushed back against earlier, blander designs for 282-key project

The planned, upgraded hotel design. Renderings: Noble Investment Group

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Last year, Atlanta planning leaders and rapt urbanists cheered as the developer of a planned hotel abandoned a flavorless design for something that better gels with Midtown’s historic aesthetic near the Fox Theatre. After a three-month (re)design process spearheaded by City of Atlanta Planning Commissioner Tim Keane, officials with developer Noble Investment Group had reworked plans for a 14-story, dual-branded hotel that all parties involved believe is a better fit. Today, construction launches on the 282-key hotel, which will rise on a parking lot at the corner of Midtown’s Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue, Noble officials tell Curbed Atlanta.

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The project, designed by Charleston-based LS3P Associates Ltd., shares the intersection with a host of historic Atlanta structures, including The Fox Theatre, The Georgian Terrace hotel, and the Ponce Condominium building—three early 20th century landmarks. The upgraded hotel design, according to Keane, integrates much better with its neighbors than the bland mockup Noble was asked to change in January 2018.

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“It is critically important that Atlanta expect more from its designers and more of its buildings,” Keane said last year, in a prepared statement. “City Planning is focused on design at every scale, so we can make a more vibrant public realm in Atlanta. Buildings are essential to this.”

The hotel is slated to feature 154 rooms under the Marriott Courtyard Flag, as well as 128 more in its Marriott Element section. The nearly 300 rooms would be stacked above a five-story parking deck. The hotel project also plans to introduce a new bar and restaurant to the bustling area. A Noble spokesperson told Curbed the project is expected to deliver by mid-2021.

This story was updated to include the name of the architecture firm behind the revised design.

Where rents start at $1,425 monthly for 500 square feet

Pop culture abounds in a hallway bisecting the renovated building. Photos courtesy of Tenth Street Ventures

 

A Midtown apartment building flip with a twist is ready for the paparazzi. Just don’t expect a red carpet.

As announced earlier this month, a small rental complex at 940 Piedmont Avenue, about a block south of 10th Street’s rainbow crosswalks, has been transformed into a more colorful venture called studio9forty, which is said to have taken design inspiration from legendary Manhattan club Studio 54.

Now finished and leasing, the project by Tenth Street Ventures, which provided Curbed Atlanta with photos of designs, carries the risqué motto: “It’s not the size of the unit, but what you do with it.”

On that topic, the building’s 24 units start at just 500 square feet. Also unique is that tenants will be encouraged to Airbnb their rentals while out of town, earning side income from flats they don’t own.

Some larger floorplans are being marketed as one-bedrooms, although blueprints show a more open concept with walls for privacy but no doors.

By the look of things, Studio 54’s pop culture influences are limited to hallways, public areas, and names of floorplan options.

The building undergoing renovations in December. This image: Google Maps

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The building today.

 

Elsewhere in Atlanta, Tenth Street Ventures recently converted the 1920s rental community Park at Peachtree Memorial into refurbished condos called Portico Buckhead, where prices begin in the high $200,000s. That project marked one of the first condo conversions in Atlanta’s current real estate cycle.

The company is priding itself on a knack for finding “hidden gems” in vibrant places like Midtown and “rehabbing older buildings while keeping them more affordable than what’s on the market,” per a press release.

“We’re motivated to breathe new life into established neighborhoods,” noted Brian McCarthy, a Tenth Street Ventures principal, “with imaginative and affordable projects.”

Decatur-based Office of Design architecture firm led the makeover, while LC Design handled interiors, with décor inspired by artist Srinjoy Gangopadhyay of Deljou Art Group.

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The cheapest floorplan’s name nods to a glamorous artist, while the largest option is called “15 Minutes of Fame.” (The starting rent has been adjusted to $1,425). studio9forty

An effort to digitize two of Atlanta’s most prominent billboards has been met with a legal challenge.

In February, the City of Atlanta’s Office of Buildings issued permits that would allow Tazmedia Group, which owns the massive advertising signs on the side and top of a 1960s office building at 1655 Peachtree Street, to upgrade the billboards to digital changing-message signs.

The Trivision billboards, which adorn the same building as a recognizable metal peach, are marketed by the owner as the “world’s largest,” passed by hundreds of thousands of commuters daily on Interstate 85.

But a few parties who could be impacted by the potential glow of the gigantic signage are calling foul.

The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation—best known as The Temple—Hament Desai, and Selig Enterprises are appealing the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment to invalidate Tazmedia’s permits, arguing that the signs are illegal now.

“They did not comply with the ordinance, they were illegally permitted, they exceed the allowed sign sizes by several multiples, and they are general-advertising signs masquerading as business-identification signs,” say a summary of the BZA appeal.

Midtown Alliance is backing the appellants. An organization rep told Curbed Atlanta this week, via email: “The signs may have been improperly permitted at the outset when they went up 25 years ago, and digitizing them would create an even more outsized visual impact on the city.”

In 1992, Tazmedia founder Taz Anderson, a former Georgia Tech and Atlanta Falcons football player, and the building’s owner sought a BZA variance that would allow them to triple the size of the rooftop “business-identification sign” from 243 to 720 square feet per sign face, according to documents related to the appeal.

In April that year, the BZA approved the variance, with a few caveats:

This rooftop sign could be no longer than 49 feet, no larger than 486 feet, and must have the same information on all three sides.

The other three BZA-imposed conditions were aimed at ensuring the rooftop sign remained a business-identification sign and not a general-advertising sign.

In May 1993, Anderson’s company secured a building permit for a rooftop sign.

Interestingly, the sign mentioned in the permit would be 917 feet, almost twice the size of what the BZA said it would allow.

Then, Anderson’s company took things a step further, procuring yet another permit for a wall-hung “identification” sign that would span more than 3,800 square feet—“more than 19 times larger than the size allowed,” according to documents.

The appellants now say that allowing the signs to be converted to LED light boards would be “further rewarding the sign owner’s illegal conduct.”

In a statement emailed to Curbed, Tazmedia President Geoff Anderson said, “Our company did comply with the ordinance, [the signs] were legally permitted, they did not exceed the allowed sign size, and they are legal business-identification signs.”

The appellants also assert the billboards are liable to distract drivers, even in their current form.

The building hosting the signs, which has been abandoned since a pre-recession condo conversion failed, was recently pegged for an adaptive-reuse upgrade by architecture firm Smith Dalia.

The firm planned to build on the progress from the ill-fated condo project and create more than 100 residences there.

But, according to Midtown Alliance officials, that plan “is currently stalled without any current permits.”

A BZA hearing regarding the appeal is scheduled for June 6 at noon at Atlanta City Hall.

The neighborhood’s transportation infrastructure needs an update to keep pace with ongoing development boom

While many promised “complete streets” projects are in limbo, awaiting the results of Renew Atlanta and TSPLOST officials’ “rebaselining” efforts, Midtown leaders are moving forward with plans to overhaul a couple of busy corridors to accommodate more than vehicles.

Currently, Spring Street, which runs one-way south, and West Peachtree Street, which runs north, are designed to allow cars to zip on and off the Connector expressway seamlessly.

But seemingly endless development is happening along those roads, especially closer to Tech Square. And high-speed motoring isn’t exactly conducive to the sort of environment many Midtown dwellers desire.

So Midtown Alliance, with the help of the City of Atlanta and Georgia Department of Transportation, is mapping out complete streets plans for Spring and West Peachtree streets.

Tentatively, the approach calls for putting both corridors on a road diet, which means nixing a car lane in exchange for cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure, such as bike lanes and wider sidewalks.

“Spring and West Peachtree streets were initially designed to get motorists through Midtown,” said Midtown Alliance Director of Transportation Dan Hourigan, according to a news release. “With more development and more residents, these corridors need to serve people, not just cars, so improving safety for everyone is crucial.”

The idea is to slow motorists down. Midtown Alliance officials have been studying drivers entering Spring Street from the highway, and it seems many have trouble easing into the 35-mph speed limit.

The proposals also outline plans to spruce up the thoroughfares with new streetside trees, public art, and ADA-compliant ramps and crosswalks.

The Spring Street section of the complete streets initiative kicked off in early 2018, and the projects—including West Peachtree Street’s—recently matured to the design and engineering phase.

It’s all part of the Midtown Transportation Plan, which was integrated into a transportation plan the Atlanta City Council adopted in December.

The need for complete streets and other transportation infrastructure upgrades was reinforced by a 2016 survey Midtown Alliance conducted, in which 94 percent of the 3,500 participants said increased walkability needs to be a top priority.

That’s not the only study that shows Atlantans want to become less car-dependant.

A Renew Atlanta and TSPLOST survey, which closed last month, found that complete streets projects are a must, according to the 1,500 people polled.

“As the city continues to grow, maximizing the existing infrastructure and shifting travel away from driving alone is a must,” Hourigan said. “Accomplishing this by providing high-quality pedestrian and bicycle facilities is exactly what projects like this one intend to deliver.”

In related news, the John Portman and Associates-designed Coda office tower—one of three Portman projects on a short strip of West Peachtree Street—opens today, adding to the long roster of newly delivered developments in Midtown.

For eight years, Julian Bene sat on the board of Invest Atlanta, which approves tax breaks for developers in the city.

Bene was often a lone dissenting voice during his time on the board. But now he is taking on a more prominent role: the leader of a new, populist surge of resistance against local government incentives for private developers.

“Even the economic development that I was supporting was not translating into more tax revenues to help more residents out,” Bene said. “That became my ‘a-ha moment’ a year before I left.”

Since the end of the Great Recession, Atlanta has boomed. The city’s population grew from 422,800 to more than 486,000between 2010 and 2017, with thousands of new apartments to house them.

The office market has taken off with it, with the equivalent of nearly five Bank of America towers — the tallest office building in the Southeast — being added to the market, filled with marquee names like NCR, Anthem Healthcare and Worldpay.

During that time, city and county officials have regularly granted developers incentives to encourage the building of all kinds of commercial projects — from mid-rise apartment buildings to distribution facilities to corporate giants’ gleaming new Midtown office towers.

But as Atlanta faces a worsening affordable housing crunch and continues to reckon with some of the country’s worst congestion, critics of the incentives, which largely come in the form of tax breaks, are starting to get louder.

Proponents of incentives say they produce tremendous economic impact. Tax abatements offered through Invest Atlanta, according to Atlanta’s annual financial report, generated more than $310M in revenue in 2018 along with the creation of 205 jobs and 860 housing units.

Because of the positives associated with new development, almost every project that applies for a tax incentive in Atlanta receives approval, industry experts say. And most projects apply for a tax break.

“Many cities around the country have given incentives away on projects that probably don’t need them,” said David Wilson, vice president at development firm Ryan Cos. “Many developments have gotten through, and people haven’t batted an eye.”

 

Since leaving Invest Atlanta last year, Bene has spearheaded a group fighting against the biggest incentive package ever devised for private development in Atlanta: $1.9B to redevelop a sea of asphalt and rail lines in Downtown Atlanta, called the Gulch, into 9M SF of office, 1M SF of retail, 2,100 apartment units and 1,500 hotel rooms. The package of tax breaks was approved in November, but not until Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had to push back several votes and make last-minute concessions to win over a skeptical City Council.

Bene’s group, Red Light The Gulch, organized speakers to loudly protest the incentive package, mounting some of the staunchest development opposition in the city’s history.

“I’m a dangerous guy to have around,” Bene said. “So far, they haven’t found a way to get to me.”

The Incentive Game

Economic development incentives were created to help communities. They can entice developers to build in neighborhoods that may be neglected, or take a chance on reviving neighborhood eyesores, by helping to offset an owner’s risk.

Developers don’t get a blank check from governments — supporters of incentives contend property tax breaks are simply bequeathing a portion of future property tax revenues generated by the new development to offset the costs for building it.

Without the new project, tax revenues on the property would remain lower than they would without the infusion of new businesses, retail sales and the rise in the property’s overall value.

There are also rising land and construction costs to consider, and regulatory hurdles that have to be overcome. Incentives can be key to get projects off the ground by helping justify those costs, Fuqua Development principal Jeff Fuqua said.

“Nobody is writing a check. You have to produce the development,” Fuqua said. “If you don’t create that, then there’s no money. A lot of people think it’s corporate welfare, but it’s not at all. You have to produce a huge amount of activity to really benefit.”

 

 

Projects in some of the hottest markets in Atlanta — like Midtown and Buckhead, where companies and residents continue to flock for all the accoutrements of urban life — don’t necessarily need incentives to get built, opponents maintain, and they still put pressure on infrastructure and government services.

“A lot of times these tax abatements are going to projects in areas where assistance doesn’t seem like it’s needed,” Atlanta City Councilman Amir Farokhi said. “Even within my own district, I see this. Midtown is a high-demand area, and we continue to see various sorts of tax abatements going there.”

The Rise Of The Backlash

While the granting of incentives has largely gone unnoticed by most of the general public for years, that changed last year, not just in Atlanta but across the country, thanks in large part to Amazon’s hunt for a second headquarters location.

Governments all over North America offered lucrative and appealing incentives — like tax breaks, land and even cash — to lure the online retail giant to their region. Critics say tax abatements, while effective in attracting employers and developers, have real consequences for municipalities across the country.

Massachusetts-based think tank Lincoln Institute of Land Policy estimated in 2012 that cities and counties across the country lose anywhere from $5B to $10B annually in forgone property tax revenues. In the years since that study has come out, the arms race to lure jobs has only increased.

Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore said this awareness and backlash toward incentives has been rising since well before the Gulch vote.

“You saw it all sort of explode with the Gulch,” Moore said. “People felt like the companies were either here already and weren’t going anywhere, or [already] had the financial wherewithal.”

Moore said there is a growing idea among residents in the city that whatever jobs are being created are not being filled by local residents, further exacerbating resentment.

“Jobs are always touted as a reason, but there’s never been a direct — at least in the public’s mind — tie between the jobs that are available and them getting the jobs,” she said.

During his time at Invest Atlanta, Bene investigated the impact of three issues that he says are draining city, county and school coffers: property tax abatements and tax allocation districts on the Eastside and Westside; sales tax stagnation; and commercial real estate values that have been chronically under-assessed.

Abatements alone cost the city of Atlanta, Fulton County and Fulton County schools as much as $40M a year in lost revenues, Bene wrote. The Eastside and Westside tax allocation districts, another popular form of incentives, generated a loss of $28M annually, he said.

“If we had no abatements, I would say that there would probably be no change in the amount of office and luxury apartments that got built,” Bene said.

He conceded that perhaps they would not be as elaborate or on such a grand scale in some cases, but they would have moved forward nonetheless because of Atlanta’s huge, and growing, demand.

“Yeah, we’d be better off,” he said.

Bene was among the many citizens who came before the Atlanta City Council to lodge their protests against the Gulch deal. In the months since, Bene has solidified that into his Red Light The Gulch organization. While the new group continues to battle in courts over the Gulch deal, Bene is using it as a vehicle to fight other big incentive packages in the city.

Protests against incentives for big projects are not relegated to Atlanta. A populist uprising against so-called “corporate welfare” — led by Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, alongside a group of local politicians — was a reason why Amazon decided to pull the plug on plans for a portion of its second headquarters in Long Island City, New York.

Farokhi, who was elected to Atlanta City Council in 2017, said more and more, the public is asking worthy questions when it comes to public incentives. Does a project create a public benefit that improves their lives? Do the projects getting incentives fit into their community’s overall vision? Are public incentives needed where market demand is already high?

“We’re not quite reconciling all three of those things,” he said. “To a lot of people, the answer appears to be no.”

Farokhi represents District 2 in Atlanta, which includes some of the city’s hottest neighborhoods: Midtown, the Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park and portions of Downtown. Farokhi was one of six council members who voted against portions of the Gulch incentive package.

CCIM Institute Chief Economist KC Conway said one reason for the widespread pushback has been the Great Recession itself. When the economy sank, there were cuts to public services and infrastructure left neglected as municipalities struggled with shrinking budgets.

What’s more property taxes are the lifeblood of public school systems. On average, public school systems receive anywhere from 65% to 80% of their budgets from the taxes property owners shell out every year, Conway said. So while developers have been incentivized with tax breaks to push new developments, Conway said many residents saw a stagnation in schools or in infrastructure improvements.

“Every chance we have to potentially benefit from development, you take it away and give it to the developer for 10 years,” Conway said. “The local community is saying, ‘Wait a minute. We’re not seeing our schools improve.’ They get all upset, and they get involved in the political process and bring things to a halt.”

Moore, who won a runoff election for council president in 2017, said Atlanta’s various TADs account for 16% of the city’s overall debt. That could spell trouble for the its budget in the next recession.

“If we don’t start looking at … closing [some TADs] and start addressing tax revenue directly, we don’t have any other ways to raise tax revenue,” other than raising property taxes on homeowners, which would be hugely unpopular, she said.

When It Works

Developers and economic development officials say a project’s success takes patience, especially when it is transforming an underused piece of property or an underserved community.

“If, in fact, you don’t have incentives, why would developers come to areas in need of redevelopment?” Dentons partner Steve Labovitz said.

Even in hot submarkets in Atlanta like Midtown and Buckhead, some developers say they need incentives just to be competitive. Land costs and construction costs have skyrocketed. If a developer building one property got an incentive, then it would be an unfair advantage to not give one to another being built nearby, Labovitz said.

“It’s always a balancing test,” he said. “It’s not clear-cut either way.”

One of the city’s premier developments, Atlantic Station, was the beneficiary of incentives before a single tower ever rose. Advocates for incentives say it represents a great example of how the tax breaks can be used to have a long-term impact beyond the initial incentives.

The mini-city in Midtown Atlanta sits on what was once a plot of land that was contaminated by its former life as a heavy industrial site. Today, Atlantic Station is home to office towers, apartments and prominent retail.

The developer, Jacoby Development, and its partner, AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., spent $250M on removing those contaminants from the soil after they purchased it in 1999. In exchange, the developer got the benefit of $170M in TAD financing on the project. Last year, Jacoby CEO Jim Jacoby told the Atlanta Business Chronicle that there was no way that project would have happened without the TAD.

Jacoby and AIG sold the development in 2011, and pieces of it have traded hands since. But the TAD bonds, which had an outstanding balance of $195.6M as of August, mature Dec. 1, 2024.

Before Atlantic Station, the 138-acre parcel generated $365K in property taxes a year, Jacoby said. Today, property taxes alone are now $30M a year, on top of the $40M in sales tax revenue it generates.

“From $365K to $70M — is that a good story or what?” Jacoby said.

Atlantic Station has become the catalyst for the growth of Atlanta’s Westside, today one of the hottest areas in the entire region. That’s the ultimate goal for the Gulch for Downtown Atlanta, despite the contention, Labovitz said.

It will take time to see its impact, but city officials calculated that Atlanta will make back multiples of the $1.9B it is giving up.

“There is a backlash, I think, [with] big projects and the amount of money [they receive] because they take a lot of time,” Labovitz said. “Thirty years from now when the Gulch is built out, people may be saying, ‘This is the greatest thing since sliced bread.’”

 

By: Jarred Schenke – Bisnow

March 4, 2019

Link to original article

A new trail project is planned that will connect downtown’s Centennial Olympic Park to the Atlanta Beltline, near the future Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry.

The PATH Foundation, Atlanta BeltLine Inc. and city of Atlanta are partnering on the roughly three-mile trail, including a new three-fourth-mile spur of the Beltline. The trail will begin at Centennial Olympic Park, run north over Ivan Allen Boulevard and along a former rail line to Marietta Boulevard at Huff Road.

“The Westside of Atlanta needs a really nice trail,” said Ed McBrayer, executive director of the PATH Foundation. “I think this is going to take off, and all of a sudden, there is going to be all kinds of development along the trail almost as soon it’s built. I think that area is ready to bloom.”

A new trail project planned to connect downtown to the Atlanta Beltline, which would run through neighborhoods including English Avenue.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta is selling its building at 1382 Peachtree Street in Midtown, on the corner of 17th Street. – BYRON E. SMALL

Johnson could be happy with the market, if recent sales and broker estimates are any indication. In late 2017, Parkside paid $19 million for the three nearby Midtown office buildings at 17th and Peachtree.

Several brokers estimated the Big Brothers Big Sisters property could sell for at least $6 million and possibly up to $8 million. It may be more attractive as a redevelopment. The brokers were unable to speak on the record because of confidentiality agreements.

The property is being marketed by Colliers International-Atlanta.

“How often can you find a nicely renovated building in the strongest market in the Southeast?” asked Colliers’ Michael Lipton, who is working on the project with colleague Jodi Selvey. Lipton could not put an asking price on the building.

Finding a buyer to occupy or redevelop the headquarters are both options, said Michele Pearce, chief external relations officer with the nonprofit.

A piece of the property includes a house built near the turn of the 20th century. The rest of the headquarters was expanded and renovated by former owner Perkins & Will, nearly 100 years later.

A piece of the property includes a house built near the turn of the 20th century. The rest of the headquarters was expanded and renovated by former owner Perkins & Will, nearly 100 years later. – BYRON E. SMALL

The house could be preserved, as it’s one of the few remaining examples of residential mansions on Peachtree, Pearce said.

When Big Brothers Big Sisters bought the current headquarters eight years ago, it offered room to grow to more than 75 employees. Today, it has about 50 staff and the urban landscape has become more crowded and expensive.

Rents have soared to record highs across several U.S. cities including Atlanta. As a result, urban dwellers of all sizes, from fresh college graduates to major corporations, are seeking smaller spaces to live and work.

It’s no different for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“We need to downsize,” Johnson said, suggesting the organization could squeeze into as little as 15,000 square feet.

Its move also comes as the city is still grappling with a long-term challenge of income inequality. In fact, Atlanta had the largest income inequality in the nation as of last year, according to the Brookings Institute.

At the same time, as the city of Atlanta comes off its largest single-year population increase in more than a decade, land and residential costs continue to climb — exacerbating the lack of affordable housing.

As the organization explores the sale of its headquarters and eventual relocation — possibly somewhere close to transit — Big Brothers Big Sisters will create a new model featuring a central location and satellite offices in the hardest-hit communities.

It will likely carry out its plan with other nonprofits focused on a similar mission.

Even as the United States enjoys one of its longest and most prosperous economic periods, many families remain in trouble, making the role of Big Brothers and Big Sisters critical. Consider that nearly 500,000 children in the 13-county metro Atlanta region live in low or very low child well-being, according to data from the United Way.

Big Brothers Big Sisters has about 400 boys and 100 girls on a waiting lists.

“We are laser-focused on poverty,” Johnson said.

 

By Maria Saporta and Douglas Sams  –  Atlanta Business Chronicle