Condos, townhomes, lofts planned for stretch of intown thoroughfare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/23/07
Atlanta's Memorial Drive corridor seems an unlikely place to find one of the city's hottest real estate markets. The gritty thoroughfare begins near the site of a former public housing complex, runs by a cemetery and cuts through an industrial area packed with factories and auto repair shops.
 RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/Staff | |
| The Jane lofts at 437 Memorial Drive. | |
 John Spink/Staff | |
| The Oakland Park condo project, near Oakland Cemetery. | |
But now, at least 10 projects are being built or planned along a 1.5-mile stretch of Memorial just east of downtown, between Oakland Cemetery and Moreland Avenue.
The developments include condominiums with ground-level restaurants, townhomes, live-work lofts, and even a bar housed in a former railroad depot.
The corridor has much going for it, developers say. It's close to hip intown neighborhoods and is a quick drive to downtown and Midtown, making it attractive for people looking to shorten their commutes.
When Atlanta developer Fred Astaire scouted for a spot to build his next project, he pounced on a small parcel across from a truck leasing and maintenance facility in Cabbagetown.
"I like it because of all the industrial buildings that were around it," said Astaire, who is building a four-story residential and commercial complex called Cabbagetown Gateway. "I thought those would get bought out eventually. The potential for growth on this corridor is pretty big."
How hot is the area? Eric Gibson, manager of Blessing Tires at the corner of Memorial and Boulevard, said developers call about once a week offering to buy the property, which sits on about two-thirds of an acre. A national drug store chain recently offered $1 million, Gibson said, but the owner is holding out for a larger payday.
Developers are bullish on Memorial Drive despite the recent downturn in the metro Atlanta housing market and a glut of condos and townhomes for sale.
Intown neighborhoods remain hot, they say, noting that the city's population is growing by about 1,000 people a month. And buyers can get more for their money in emerging areas like Memorial Drive compared to Midtown and Buckhead. Housing prices of the new units range from the mid-$100,000s to the mid-$400,000s, with most around the $300,000 mark.
"Obviously right now, it's a challenging market," said Rick Schrager of Atlanta-based Perennial Properties, which is building Reynoldstown Village, a 38-unit residential complex with a swimming pool and corner commercial space on Memorial, next to a sprawling Leggett & Platt manufacturing plant.
But "there's no secret that Atlanta has one of the worst commutes in the country, and more and more people are deciding to move intown."
Old makes way for new
Slowly but surely, the old Memorial is getting pushed aside.
Lenny's, a working-class country bar near Oakland Cemetery adopted by urban hipsters, has moved to make way for construction of a five-story, 100-unit condo with ground-level retail.
An abandoned freight rail depot will soon become a bar and restaurant with an outdoor patio overlooking Atlanta's planned Beltline transit and trails loop. Next door, a vacant motorcycle parts warehouse is being converted to Triumph lofts, a condo complex that includes a roof-top deck, swimming pool and wine cellar.
The area has been in transition for a number of years, fueled by urban pioneers moving to Grant Park, Cabbagetown, Reynoldstown and other adjacent neighborhoods. Several popular, trendy restaurants have opened alongside a handful of small condo developments.
But several factors have helped accelerate the pace of change.
The city's housing authority demolished the Capitol Homes public housing complex that sprawled along Memorial near downtown, clearing the way for a mixed-income community. Meanwhile, a sweeping zoning change was approved by the city last year designed to foster a more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere along Memorial, in part by requiring wider sidewalks and allowing developments to have a mix of uses, such as condos with ground-level shops.
The public housing redevelopment "has been just a real sea change for Memorial," said James Brooks, an Atlanta developer who is building a five-story, 100-unit condo with ground-level retail on the former Lenny's site, in a partnership with Chicago-based The Habitat Co.
Some neighbors welcome the new development.
"I am a supporter of greater density in the city, close to transit, and close to downtown," said Natallie Keiser, director of operations for the Reynoldstown Revitalization Corp., a non-profit group that works to provide affordable housing options. "I think the transformation is positive."
But not everyone is so sanguine. Many Grant Park residents who live north of I-20 opposed the new zoning guidelines, arguing that the change allows too much density for an already busy road bordering their neighborhood.
The new zoning generally allows construction of up to six stories along Memorial. That's simply too tall, said Peggy Williams, who has lived in north Grant Park since 1994.
"We love having the restaurants to walk to, we love having the shops, we love having the people on Memorial Drive," she said. "But it should just be more to scale."
And the development wave may be only beginning.
Several large properties are for sale, including a large auto parts warehouse in Reynoldstown.
The developers of Oakland Park, a five-story condo across the street from Oakland Cemetery, have an option to buy an adjacent parcel that contains a check cashing store and budget-priced Mexican restaurant. The developers have already purchased a former dry ice warehouse near the cemetery for a future project.
Perhaps the most significant looming change involves the sprawling 9.5-acre Atlanta Dairy plant east of Boulevard, which has recently been put up for sale. A neighborhood fixture for decades, the company plans to build a more efficient plant elsewhere in the metro area, said the plant's general manager, Ted Young. Young said the property is worth more than $1 million an acre.
Only a matter of time
To gauge the level of change sweeping the neighborhood, look no further than Mammy's Kitchen, a modest breakfast and lunch spot founded 60 years ago in Reynoldstown to serve workers at surrounding factories and warehouses.
Regulars still slip into red vinyl booths and read the paper over eggs, coffee and bacon. But a new world is cropping up outside the diner's formica tables and bright fluorescent lights.
On a nearby corner, a homeless mission has been torn down to make way for the Reynoldstown Village project. Across the street, developers have purchased a small parcel for a townhome and retail complex. Down the road, past an auto body shop, is a hip townhome development featuring units made of brightly colored metal siding.
On a recent weekday, Theresa Stangline manned the cash register at the restaurant she and her husband bought in the mid-1970s. Stangline, a slender, energetic woman with short blond hair, is retired but commutes from her home in Dunwoody once a week to work for her son, who now runs the place.
She said she felt it was only a matter of time before residential development came to the area.
"It's not a surprise to me, because where I live the traffic is astronomical," she said. "People want to live closer to downtown, where they don't have to get in the traffic."
She declined to say if developers had offered to buy the restaurant. When asked about Mammy's future, she chose her words carefully.
"Right now, just right now, as of today, we're staying put," she said.
That means co-existing with a flood of new neighbors like Adam Pruett and Michael Allgood, who recently purchased a two-bedroom condo at the nearby Triumph lofts for $340,000.
Pruett, a 28-year-old medical resident at Emory University, said he and his partner initially wanted to buy in Midtown, which they like because of its bustling, urban vibe.
But they realized they could afford a much larger place on Memorial. The location worked — it's a close drive to the hospitals where Pruett is training, and they liked how the condo building is on the Beltline and near Glenwood Park, a high-end residential and retail complex just over I-20.
They feel they're lucky to be getting in to the Memorial corridor just as it's about to take off.
"It's nice we were able to get something of this size and value, and hopefully we'll see that [value] grow as the area develops," Pruett said.
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