The long-stalled Streets of Buckhead project, originally envisioned as the “Rodeo Drive of the South,” may keep some of its luxury components.
But the project’s new owners on Monday laid out plans for a somewhat humbler development, with scaled-down buildings, less retail space and a new name: Buckhead Atlanta.
Work will resume around the end of the year, with a goal of opening in 2013, said California-based developer OliverMcMillan, which this month took over the troubled project from Atlanta developer Ben Carter.
“We really see this as more of an urban village,” said Jeremy Meredith, development director for OliverMcMillan. “We’re trying to make it look like it isn’t just a project.”
When first announced in 2007, the project included condos, four hotels and 500,000 square feet of retail. While Carter’s vision changed as the economy declined, the latest version of the six-block, eight-acre mixed-use project “has been scaled back to a more walkable, human scale,” OliverMcMillan said in a release.
The new plans keep two 20-story apartment complexes, but Meredith said there will be no hotel, little office space and more walkable streets inside the development. Instead of large fountains in town squares, he said, coffee shops will draw people in. Retail space has been cut to 300,000 square feet and will be designed to bring people into the project at different times of day, with family-friendly and date-night components.
Meredith said he could not discuss tenants for the project, but added high-end retailers remain and will be “a great part of the mix.”
Bob Simons, managing partner for commercial real estate law firm Hartman Simons, said conversations with OliverMcMillan lead him to believe many tenants that originally joined the project will still be a part of it. Planned retailers include Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermes and Brunello Cucinelli.
Simons said OliverMcMillan seems realistic about the current market.
“It’s good to see the life coming back,” he said.
OliverMcMillan said it will invest an additional $300 million to complete the project; $400 million has already been spent on land acquisition and construction.
Abe Schear, real estate partner at the law firm Arnall Golden Gregory, said he is confident in OliverMcMillan’s plans.
“I would not see it as a smaller scale,” he said. “I would see it as a more proper scale for today’s market.”
About the Author
