Five developers to meet with GDOT about transit hub

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By Rachel Tobin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Department of Transportation will meet with five developers in early November to get their ideas and questions for a long-proposed but never built transit hub in downtown Atlanta.

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Railroad tracks and parking lots are common in the gulch . The Spring Street Viaduct is shown with the Georgia Dome and the Philips Arena in the background.

Jason Getz, jgetz@ajc.com Railroad tracks and parking lots are common in the gulch . The Spring Street Viaduct is shown with the Georgia Dome and the Philips Arena in the background.

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GDOT released the list on its website late Thursday. Three Atlanta-based development firms will have meetings. Jacoby Development, which bought the closed Ford plant in Hapeville for redevelopment, also is known for its role in making Atlantic Station a reality. Cousins Properties, a large, publicly traded real estate investment trust, develops, owns and manages office towers and shopping centers such as The Avenues. Portman Holdings and John Portman & Associates has developed more than a dozen buildings downtown, including AmericasMart, and pioneering "atrium-style" hotels such as the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.

Two Chicago-based real estate firms also have meetings: the John Buck Co. and Jones Lang LaSalle.

GDOT has said the meetings will help it create the request for proposals for a master developer with which the department would work through its public-private partnership program. The request will be issued in December, and GDOT expects to choose a developer in May.

The developer will be expected to propose a transit hub for multiple modes of transportation as well as mixed uses such as residences, retail stores and office spaces. The developer also will be expected to study and propose economically feasible ways to build the transit hub.

The area suggested for the proposed "multimodal" station is an active rail hub in downtown Atlanta surrounded by parking lots that is known as "the gulch."