Architecture Notebook: A sign of the times?

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.