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MARCH 2019 • VOL. 11 — NO. 3
Brookhaven Reporter
MARCH
Sandy Spring s
Section Two
Dunw oody Brookh aven
comedy pioneer joins a movie theater’s new era ►Out & About ►Summer Camps
RNEWS
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City ready to restart MARTA station redevelopment talks
A TV co medy p ioneer joins
BY DY AN
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Survey: Are toll lanes worth taking homes? P18
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AROUND TOWN
An Olympics champion finds a home at the MJCCA P20
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BY DYANA BAGBY dyanabagby@reporternewspapers.net
EVELYN ANDREWS
Tim Matthews, a Georgia Department of Transportation program manager, discusses the Ga. 400 toll lanes project with the Perimeter Center Improvement Districts board at its Feb. 27 meeting.
House demolitions, access points cause rising concerns in toll lane plans BY EVELYN ANDREWS AND DYANA BAGBY
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As the Georgia Department of Transportation prepares to release long-awaited details on its toll lanes projects on Ga. 400 and I-285, residents and officials are expressing concern over recently revealed house demolitions and questions about access ramps. One Sandy Springs neighborhood revealed that GDOT says 20 homes are slated for demolition. Residents worried it would “destroy” neighborhoods in Brookhaven and sink Dunwoody values. And Dunwoody City Council has raised concern that the
city is getting the short end of the stick after Sandy Springs has negotiated some access points off its streets. GDOT is working on two projects that would add four new toll lanes, called “express lanes” or “managed lanes,” along I-285 and Ga. 400 in the Perimeter Center area over the next decade, with the intent of improving overall traffic flow. Parts of the project are expected to be elevated toll lanes to use existing right of way. The toll lanes are part of a system being built metro-wide, including recently opened lanes on I-75 and See HOUSE on page 12
City leaders say they are ready to renew talks with the MARTA board of directors about a long-discussed redevelopment of the Brookhaven-Oglethorpe Station site. The efforts come two years after MARTA dumped a “town center” project that included an officer tower, more than 500 residential units and a small public park space. The abandonment of the plan followed months of community backlash over density and failed negotiations with the City Council over tax breaks. In a Feb. 8 letter to MARTA board chair Freda Hardage, Mayor John Ernst said the city “would like to advance the redevelopment of the MARTA properties” at the station, which is located on prime real estate in the heart of the city at Peachtree and North Druid Hills roads. “The city views this station as a strategically important development site within the region and would like to advance in a purposeful manner,” Ernst wrote. That is the “total reset” the mayor envisioned in 2017 when he directed city staff to halt any work on tax abatements for the planned transit-oriented development following several rezoning delays. Trouble between the city and Integral and Transwestern Development Company, which made up Brookhaven City Center Partners, the developers hired by MARTA for the project, had been brewing for some time before the mayor’s reset request. See CITY on page 15
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