One more Beltline walk pic — an important one
BY Jeanne Bonner • November 30, 2009
I took the photo above earlier this month during a tour of the Beltline’s Northeastern section with Angel Poventud, the uber-activist.
What do we see in the photo? A high-rise at the corner of 10th and Monroe.
As Linda Richman used to say, talk amongst yourselves, and see a personal disclosure below.
And while you talk amongst yourselves, let me add my two cents — albeit a bit late — about a recent decision by the NPU-F to reject the Beltline’s plan to allow up to an eight-story building near the corner of 10th and Monroe in Midtown Atlanta. (See here for a great overview by Creative Loafing’s Thomas Wheatly).
Cent one: How did the building in the photo above get there? (Clearly the Beltline folks need to do whatever that guy did).
Cent two: Now that it’s there, why can’t there be other buildings of that size in the area? Does the neighborhood consider that building a mistake? Are there plans to demolish it?
The issue is complex and of course, it’s not my neighborhood, so it’s pretty easy to give carte blanche to developers in that area since it will not affect my daily commute or the enjoyment of my home.
And Monroe is such a complex street: on the one hand, it already supports a heavy amount of traffic, which tells me it’s no longer some minor neighborhood street. It’s a major North-South connector that’s already home to one of the city’s largest shopping centers.
On the other hand, there are some cute houses on Monroe! Reminding me, that for the residents, it’s home and hopefully their little spot of peace. And given Atlanta’s track record on transit, I would understand if residents feared that traffic relief is not coming anytime soon in the way of a light rail or a streetcar system.
But how do you counter the fact that a building more or less fitting the description of the Beltline’s proposal already exists at that intersection?
Personal disclosure: I want to let readers know that recently I covered a one-time event for the Beltline, and wrote two pieces that I believe will appear in the organization’s internal newsletter. I don’t work for the Beltline, and I have not received any other freelance assignments from the organization. I continue to have a natural skepticisim about a project as large as the Beltline in a city like Atlanta, but you should know that I did some paid work for the organization and you may want to factor that into any response you have to this or other posts.
That said, if you look at all the posts I wrote before my Beltline freelance assignment, I think you will know my motivation. And it’s a simple desire — previously stated ad nauseam — to fill in the parts of the city we have already developed, rather than an interest in promoting the Beltline.
Whether they build the trail/rail corridor as planned or not, I think there should be other buildings of the same height as the building in the photo above at that intersection and many others around the city that have been suburbanized in the most hideous way.
And whether the Beltline increases density or not, I want increased density, again, in the parts of the city such as the intersection of 10th and Monroe that are not small internal neighborhood roads, that are no longer undeveloped, that in fact have been developed poorly and should be re-developed correctly to reflect the largely urban environment of Midtown and to bring a more efficient flow of cars, pedestrians and cyclists to our inner city.
I wonder if instead of rejecting the proposal, the residents could have held the city’s feet to the flames and said, “Fine, you can build your eight-story building but we want in writing right now a pledge that in the next five years the city will start building a street car system that will run up and down Boulevard/Monroe and east and west along 10th Street.”
Because wouldn’t that respond to the most urgent concerns? Atlanta is already a jumble of development so you see, in the case of Monroe, cute little bungalows down the street from large surface parking lots, strip mall retail development and the apartment building in the photo above.
To say one building or another changes the character of a neighborhood overestimates that extent to which we have preserved said character up to now. So I think increased traffic emerges as the most important concern of the folks in NPU-F.
I guess I will just say again that it’s a complex issue, and it’s unclear how City Council will rule on this matter. I want to hear from everyone and I know some of you will take me to task. I’m eager to see the issue from as many sides as readers can come up with.
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Virginia Hill Condo is in the “never again” category. Frankly, I like it and see it as a very desirable place to live. And certainly, high-rises all around the perimeter of the park would give the maximum number of people access and views, the taller the better. That includes replacing all the houses on 10th across the street.
I can’t imagine folks who live in the neighborhoods thinking it would be a good thing for them. But it’s easy imagine resistance to grand, even well-meaning ideas from folks who don’t don’t live there.
For me, the most important thing Altanta can do densification-wise is to concentrate on filling in the blanks of central Downtown and Midtown — the area I refer to as the ‘urban island’ of the city. There are many surface parking lots and single-story buildings in this zone that are waiting to become part of a walkable, compact urban landscape. City leaders and developers would be wise to work together to allow this urban island to realize its full potential.
As for the 10th & Monroe area, I’m of two minds. On the one hand I think it’s ridiculous for anyone to expect a spot in the middle of a big city where two major public resources (Piedmont Park and the Beltline) converge to stay as it is — how can you expect an attractive area with developing amenities to maintain a stable density? On the other hand, any density built here before the development of mass-transit expansion exists will be car-dependent density. And that’s something Atlanta needs like a poke in the eye.
In Atlanta there seems to be a conflict between proponents of densification and defenders of its historic, detached-home, car-dependent intown neighborhoods. As an urbanist with a love for walkable, compact cities with good transit I’m often torn between staying in my home town while hoping for improvements and moving to a more walkable city that embraces urbanism.
I understand the city has to appeal to different desires in living arrangements. My wish is that a truly walkable, livable urban area will exist at some point soon — the kind of compact urban neighborhood you can find in most of the big cities around the country and all over the globe.
That kind neighborhood doesn’t have to be the norm in Atlanta. I can accept that most of the residential area of the city will continue to be occupied by detached houses. But I do want the city to realize the importance of catering to the growing number of young, creative workers who are interested in living car-free in urban neighborhoods (real urban neighborhoods — not just gleaming condo towers without supportive street-level amenities). Losing out on attracting that demographic for the sake of maintaining the status quo of residential density would be a big mistake, I think.
We have to stop imagining that we can delicately walk the line between the longterm devestation of sprawl and our loathing of density. 3 million MORE people will be living in the metro area in 30 years. Where will they live? We can’t just put 100,000 in downtown and midtown and say that’s good enough, the other 2.9 million will just have to find new suburban tract homes. We in-town folks need to get on board to absorb the growth or else expect to explain to our grandkids that we fiddled while Rome was burning. Some day we may wonder why we didn’t impose a moratorium (sooner) on building detached houses.
Its hard to know where to start. The issue with this intersection is that there is no transit and the proposed buildings would essentially be in the park. That intersection is already a mess. That building was built when there were a LOT less people living in midtown and its in the middle of a commercial area not pushed against an 80 year old neighborhood.
Its a misconception that single family homes are all that’s found in the area. There are many apartment buildings and midtown is covered up with condo towers. Gables Midtown (‘midtown’) was just built in my neighborhood (piedmont heights) and while plenty of homeowners aren’t happy about it there was no real opposition because they didn’t need to rezone to build it.
Its an 8 story 300+ unit building that’s about 30 feet from single family homes.
If you need a rezoning to build it then absolutely the people who live there should have some say in it. And as always I try to push the idea that its a lie that we don’t have enough density in Midtown to support transit. Those in charge aren’t interested in transit really. They are interested in development. We need bus rapid transit that will take us places. We need it now.
I don’t have a problem with a high density development in that area, it would make a lot of sense even though it would be between my house (in Va-Hi) and the park.
But Midtown promenade is choking to death already – since trader joes has opened (which we really love being near), we’ve had to give up on going to dinner at Nam, grocery shopping or going to a movie for substantial portions of the week because of a lack of parking and traffic. Adding several hundred new residents without a plan is NO more part of the solution than is picking up take out pizza on a bike.
That area needs a real development plan. And THAT plan needs to address the ridiculous traffic flow of midtown promenade NOT being connected to the Home Depot across from city hall east, and THAT plan will require fixing N Highland/Ponce and mooreland to I-20 (because if monroe gets worse, that’s where the spillover goes).
Not just the city of Atlanta, but the state of georgia has a long history of letting developers do what they want and then not having the money/political will to make things right after the fact. Why on earth would any of the current residents of midtown/va-hi/morningside trust that development there with a pledge to fix transit would ever happen when we have one of the leading candidates for governor talking about building a parallel connector through our neighborhoods to get folks from the northern arc burbs to the airport faster?
Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful comments.
Timothy Harrison, ding ding ding for this comment: “3 million MORE people will be living in the metro area in 30 years. Where will they live? We can’t just put 100,000 in downtown and midtown and say that’s good enough, the other 2.9 million will just have to find new suburban tract homes.”
You are so right!
Darin — I’m with you; I’m of two minds, too. The residents of Monroe, et al, will have to endure more cars in their neighborhood for probably 5 to 10 years at the least before getting any relief.
Jonathan, you make a great point about parking by Trader Joe’s. Try to go to the movies and you realize very quickly that there are way too many cars in that shopping complex. I was there recently, and a friend asked why they didn’t build a parking garage — I would guess neighborhood opposition, though if you put it in the back by the movie theater, who would see it?
I also would like to see underground parking there (perhaps too expensive at this late a date) particularly since I wish they would develop the part that fronts Monroe, in front of Trader Joe’s and essentially next to Starbucks.
It’s one of the most well-used shopping centers in the city but it is ugly! And it is ugly because of suburban-style development that includes vast surface parking lots. People go there, but can you imagine if it were laid out so that parking was not the top priority? It would be awesome — great location, views of the city skyline, the greenery of the park right there, and it would be an absolute destination.
I guess I naively hope that adding buildings there will absolutely push the city over the edge — and force it to get serious about mass transit. Some people have said that unfortunately we still have not hit rock-bottom in terms of traffic and hence we won’t truly embrace mass transit until we do. Sounds like many more years of pain.
One of the many frustrating things about the Midtown Promenade is that there is no safe, easy way to enter it as a pedestrian from the road. I actually haven’t tried to do that since the Starbucks was built — anyone know if there’s a pedestrian entrance on that side from Monroe?
I lived nearby in ViHi for three years and came to realize that the sidewalks around here are largely unused for any utilitarian purpose. They’re mostly used as jogging trails.
There’s nothing wrong with jogging on sidewalks, of course. But I think people can sometimes get fooled into thinking that, just because an intown neighborhood has sidewalks, it’s automatically pedestrian-friendly. There’s a lot more involved in creating lively pedestrian activity and supporting alternative transportation than simply building sidewalks on top of a suburban, car-dependent neighborhood.
Pedestrian street traffic and viable alternatives to car transportation are two things that will be very important to foster in this area if the Beltline is going to do any real good for the city overall.
I live in this building and can offer some context for questions.
Cent 1: Corruption.
This building was constructed in 1987-88 and the original developers were a local politically connected guy and a former NFL player. They went bankrupt in the last housing crisis way back in 1989-90. Bank of America took over the property and finished it. This building, ie. my building, is the only structure above the treetops between Emory and the Midtown commercial corridor and its that way because they bribed and pulled some flavors to get an exemption to the treetop zoning restriction.
Cent 2: Why no new buildings? very complex but the surface roads are already jammed. The only new approved development in this area was the storage complex on Kanuga because hopefully people aren’t living in the rental units. Hopefully no plans to demolish my building but yes indeed the community (VH) probably does still consider the building a mistake. Keep in mind the community fought the recent parking lot addition inside Piedmont Park, which will add lots of new traffic.
Traffic at the shopping center is only bad now because Ackerman has decent tenants. Previously there was a Winn Dixie in there and traffic wasn’t an issue. Basically Trader Joe’s and Richard’s occupy the old Winn Dixie.
This is a great location, I’ve been here for many years and its so convenient that I got rid of my car three years and now rent my parking space to fund my Marta card, but getting around on foot or bike requires alot of attention because it can be dangerous.
PS. Apparently you not aware that the suburban garden style apartments just on the other side of the beltline from my building was the old Virginia Highland Streetcar Trolley Barn, kinda ironic.
Ever since the 1970′s fights to Stop the ROAD, VH has been very successful in getting their way. If you walk by John Howell park in Virginia Ave you’ll notice the street numbers of the houses taken by the DOT way back then are memorialized on the short brick posts. I’d bet any development over here will be a longtime coming giving the prior performance/bad behaviour of city and state governments.