MARTA revives Lindbergh Station plans

By John Ruch

Lindbergh Center Station is where MARTA first tried transit-oriented development nearly 20 years ago, with mixed and incomplete results. Now, in the midst of a TOD project boom, the transit agency is selling two parcels to kick-start the unfinished mixed-use redevelopment around the station and maybe upgrade what’s there today.

It’s a personal project for MARTA, which has its headquarters at Lindbergh and has made TOD a top priority under General Manager and CEO Keith Parker.

“From our general manager’s perspective, he would love for our headquarters here to be located in something considered a model TOD nationally so we could walk outside and live it every day,” said Amanda Rhein, MARTA’s director of TOD projects.

Sally Silver, an aide to City Councilmember Howard Shook who has long been involved in Lindbergh-area planning, said the attempt to revive the TOD plan is especially important with MARTA’s “Clifton Corridor” project on the horizon. That proposed new light rail line between Lindbergh Center and Avondale through the Emory University area is targeted for some funding from the recently approved MARTA sale tax increase.

“The Lindbergh area is going to be the best place in the city of Atlanta to live,” Silver said she has long predicted, due to its live-work-play TOD and rail line access.

In the late 1990s, MARTA rolled out a TOD master plan for roughly six blocks around the station on Lindbergh Drive. Developers were selected and work continued into the middle of the past decade, but the vision ran into “obstacles,” Rhein said. Those included development partners dropping out, changes in the economy that affect financing, and lawsuits from residents concerned about traffic.

Several projects were built along Main Street, including mixed-use buildings and two apartment complexes, one of which was originally planned as condos. But it wasn’t quite what MARTA envisioned and later phases stalled.

“It was supposed to be more of a retailfocused project,” said Rhein.

Silver recalled that a smaller, urbanstyle grocery store was part of the plan that never happened. Instead, a traditional Kroger with a large parking lot recently opened nearby, on Morosgo Drive.

Likewise, Silver and Rhein said, the project included some non-TOD uses,

Business Briefs

Paces Properties has announced that Collier’s Department Store and a cafe from THRIVE Famers will be some of the first tenants at the Atlanta Dairies development on Memorial Drive in Reynoldstown. Paces has already signed Agon Entertainment, owners of the Georgia Theatre in Athens and Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points. The former dairy site at 777 Memorial Drive will have space for entertainment, retail, restaurant and office tenants.

Selig Enterprises is proposing a $400 million development, anchored by a 32-story tower, on a 3.5-acre site along West Peachtree Street in Midtown. The project at 1105 West Peachtree St. would include 645,000 square feet of office space, 80 residential units, a 150-key boutique hotel, and street-level retail. The project would also feature multiple buildings connected by a nearly one-acre plaza.

Honeywell has leased 62,000 square feet in Midtown’s 715 Peachtree building to house its state-of-the-art software center and Home and Building Technologies (HBT) global headquarters. According to a news release, Honeywell plans to invest $19 million in the site and staff it with more than 730 full-time product software engineers and approximately 100 HBT HQ employees over the next five years. Most of the employees will specialize in developing software products that support Honeywell’s solutions addressing the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), including mobile, cloud computing and data analytics, as well as marketing and user experience. The engineers will work on critical software and digital products as part of the company’s connected technologies for homes, buildings, industrial plants, workers, automobiles and aircraft.

Pullman Yard, the historic rail car and service facility in Kirkwood, has been put on the market by the Georgia Building Authority. The minimum bid for the 27-acre site is $5.6 million, plus an additional $14,285 for the due diligence costs. Sealed bids are due by April 4, 2017. Developers have wanted to tackle the property, including one proposal to transform the site into a mixed- such as the Pike Nurseries plant and garden store at Lindbergh Drive and Camelia Lane. “Today we would not put a nursery on that site,” Rhein said.

Now MARTA is in a different era, with highdensity TOD projects for five stations under construction or moving through review process, and a sixth — King Memorial station — stalled on the drawing board.

With that momentum, MARTA took another look at Lindbergh and came up with a strategic approach. While the agency owns several parcels around the station, it recently issued a request for proposals for two of them — a vacant lot at 2562 Piedmont Road and a small site at 572 Morosgo currently housing MARTA’s fleet management offices. Proposals are due Jan. 23.

The strategy, Rhein said, is to get a developer interested in buying up adjacent private properties, too, and create a development along the “front door” of use development of art studios, urban gardening, sustainability classes, retail, a nature preserve and sports facilities.

UnitedLex, a global provider of technology-powered business, legal and cybersecurity services, has announced the opening of its Atlanta office at 180 Interstate North Parkway. The new facility will provide a full range of legal support and cyber security services to UnitedLex’s growing client base of top Fortune-listed corporations and law firms. When staffed to capacity, the new Atlanta facility will house 150 lawyers and technologists.

Cherry Blow Dry Bar will soon open at 915 West Peachtree Street in Midtown. Cubanborn entrepreneurs Al and Isabel Nunez and their daughter, Jen, are opening the shop, which will offer membership plans starting at $59 for two monthly blowouts. The shop will also offer extensions, make-up services, scalp massages, protein treatments, braids and clip-in applications.

Attom, a luxury men’s concept store based in Switzerland, has opened its first U.S. store at 3035 Peachtree Road A160 in The Shops Buckhead Atlanta

Real estate development firm Third & Urban has announced that catering company Proof of the Pudding will be the first major tenant in COMPLEX, an adaptive re-use project in West Midtown slated to break ground this month. Proof of the Pudding will occupy 31,000 square feet in a 10-year lease with an expected move-in date of April

Piedmont. The hope is that would raise the value of other MARTA-owned parcels before they are sold for future TOD redevelopment.

2017. PSG Construction and LTX Solutions will also move into COMPLEX in 2017. COMPLEX, slated for a completion by May 2017, will feature 105,000 square-feet of flexible space for individuals and businesses. The project will offer approximately 20 different spaces, with a mix of warehouse, office and retail uses, as well as varied ceiling heights and loading capabilities. For more information, visit complexwestmidtown. com.

The Kohler Signature Store is now open at 3167 Peachtree Road, Suite M in Buckhead. The store offers comprehensive design services for both the kitchen and bath, including product selection, design development, and project assistance. For more information, visit kohlersignaturestoreatlanta.com.

When the Atlanta International Gift and Home Furnishings Market opens for business at AmericasMart Atlanta on Jan. 10, the global retail and design community will mark and celebrate its staging as the 60th consecutive winter show under continuous Portman Family ownership and management and the latest and largest in a continuing legacy of industry-leading market events. For more information, visit americasmart.com.