In urban lore, the tree that inches through the crack in the sidewalk is a symbol of survival against all odds. Atlanta, being the city of trees, does it differently. In our town, at least at a new mixed-use complex on the corner of Decatur and Hill streets, we sprout billboards.
Two billboards seem to be growing out of Pencil Factory Flats & Shops now under construction. A single-pole billboard is partially hidden in a shaft in the breezeway at ground level before breaking free above the roof. A double-pole number rises bare naked from what will be a courtyard by the pool.
"It's difficult architecturally to justify keeping them," says developer Tim Schrager, a principal of Perennial Properties. "But it was economically imperative that they be saved."
Visible from the Downtown Connector's Grady Curve, where more than 300,000 cars a day pass by, the eight-story billboards are advertising gold. The ground lease, held by billboard owner Clear Channel, is an important source of revenue, Schrager says, especially since a hoped-for tax abatement didn't come through.
The single-pole board should affect the view in only a few units, he says. The double-pole one, which will loom above the pool, is, he acknowledges, "more intrusive potentially. "
"We thought about disguising it, but in the end decided that would call more attention to it."
Will the billboards discourage prospective tenants, who would pay $850 per month for a studio to upward of $1,900 for a three-bedroom apartment? Schrager hopes they will be seen as a quirky distinction.
"They might differentiate it from the other apartments," he says. "At least [prospective tenants] will remember it."
But Pencil Factory Flats, which is expected to open in September, won't be unique for long. There's a project in the planning stages at Piedmont Avenue and Cheshire Bridge Road in which some apartments will face a billboard on the adjacent property.
Who knows? Perhaps built-in billboards will become a badge of urban living —- something Perennial Properties will soon find out.
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