When Whole Foods opened its newest INtown store on West Paces Ferry in September, it was the latest in a number of signs that Buckhead is in the midst of a major transformation.
Scotty Greene, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, said the store’s opening reveals a company that is confident that mixed-use development – combining residential, retail and office space accessible to pedestrians walking by at the street level – isn’t just a short-lived fad in Buckhead.
“The idea that Whole Foods has a store here in Buckhead shows you there’s a clear market there to serve single homeowners living just outside the commercial district,” he said. “There’s no better market analysis than what you see coming out of the ground.”
Until recently, mixed-use development has been identified more with parts of the city like Atlantic Station and Midtown.
“In the past, outside of Buckhead Village, [buildings] were either solo retail or pure office – there were always free-standing restaurants, but there was no combination of retail, office and residential in the same building,” added Greene. “That’s new.”
On either side of the Grand Hyatt hotel at the northwest corner of Peachtree and Piedmont roads Cousins Properties’ Terminus and the Novare Group-Wood Partners project Realm Condominiums are just two prominent examples of what is quickly becoming a hallmark of new development in Buckhead. (Atlanta INtown is owned by Nonami Enterprises, a Cousins family interest unrelated to Cousins Properties.)
Terminus, a 27-story office tower that will feature about 65,000 square feet of retail space and three restaurants, promises to bring “true urban-style street-front retail” and serve as a catalyst to transform the shopping area along Peachtree when it opens in April 2007, said Cousins senior vice president Tad Leithead.
Though the project’s first phase (called Terminus 100) will focus on office space – Cousins plans to relocate its headquarters there from Windy Ridge Parkway near the Perimeter– later phases will include the construction of a planned 700-unit condominium building with an additional 35,000 square feet of retail space at the street level.
Just down Piedmont, the 406-unit condominium tower Realm is set to open in April with 24,000 square feet of office space and 13,000 square feet of street-level retail space. “It’s the addition of high-end but affordable housing for that market,” said Wood Partners regional director Mark Randall, adding that Realm’s condo units are priced from the upper $100,000s to low $400,000s range.
“Plus, it’s so close to the MARTA station, so there’s great access to other parts of Atlanta without having to get in your car,” he added. “It helps make available plenty of opportunities to live, work, play.” Baker said: “It is that aspect of the neighborhood that is driving so much of the recent development, said William T. Baker of William T. Baker & Associates, the architectural design consultant for the condominium tower Gallery, which broke ground in September at the corner of Peachtree and Rumson roads.
“It’s very close in to the shopping and restaurant scene, so we’re still seeing a very strong demand for Buckhead housing, both for single family and multifamily. I’ve been really surprised how strong the multifamily [development] has been going – they’re selling them as fast as they’re building them.”
Expected to open in the fall of 2007, Gallery is also “one of the last large parcels that will come on the market in Buckhead anytime soon, so this may be one of the last chances to buy property of this caliber,” he added.
Getting around Buckhead
New transportation options also are adding to the neighborhood’s residential appeal. The Buckhead Uptown Connection (or BUC) will celebrate its second anniversary this year of providing free weekday shuttle service at 26 stops along its seven-mile route through the neighborhood.
“You get a mix of everyone – shoppers, businesspeople, people from out of town,” said Amy Sturgill, employer outreach coordinator for the Buckhead Area Transportation Management Association, which operates the service. With an average daily ridership of 1,540 people in September, BUC plans to add Saturday service starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.
The neighborhood’s nightlife has also seen significant changes as well, said Buckhead Coalition President Sam Massell. “Our [Buckhead] Village area is much improved,” he said. “The crowds are smaller and they’re more orderly.”
Late-night traffic that once clogged Peachtree from Buckhead Village down to Peachtree Battle until the early hours of the morning has declined steadily, he added, because of better policing and new laws that prevent underage patrons from getting into the bars. Bars now must stop serving alcohol at 2:30 a.m. and close by 3 a.m.; previously they were allowed to serve until 3 a.m. and close at 4 a.m.
“That has reduced the criminal activity very late at night, because if you reduce the amount of people, you reduce the chances for crime,” said Maj. J.P. Spillane, commander of Buckhead’s Zone 2 police precinct. “We’ve really noticed a decrease in activity around the bars, because a lot of them have shut down. Basically, people go to different bars now – there’s a lot more bars in the suburbs now, for example.”
Crime is down
Like the overall crime statistics for the city as a whole – which are down 18 percent over the past two years, Spillane added – crime in Buckhead has dropped significantly, down 14 percent from a year ago for the period from January through July.
Those changes are helping spur the new development that’s occurring in the neighborhood, added Massell. “We don’t want to put out all the bars, but we want to get balance, which we think we’re going to have now,” he said, pointing to the spaces for former establishments like Jellyrolls and Bar, which are now in the process of converting to shops.
In addition, the neighborhood’s streetscapes along Peachtree will be getting a major overhaul. From Peachtree-Dunwoody to East Shadowlawn, new landscaped medians are planned for the middle of Peachtree starting in the first quarter of next year, and are to include new sidewalks and bicycle lanes along with tree-canopied garden areas.
“The changes in the use of Peachtree will transform it, with people crossing the street, using the new sidewalks,” added the Improvemt District’s Greene. “The lower-rise properties — those all will eventually be developed into vertical, denser, mixed-use development.”
(Photo by LeAnn Shaw)