Decatur commission approves extending longtime dead end New Street

Decatur’s commission has approved extending New Street, which has been a dead end for at least half century. Though it only runs about a quarter mile, New includes an eclectic mix of, among others, a church (All Souls Fellowship) a private school (Academe of the Oaks), two doggie day-care business, a boxing gym, a brewery (Three Taverns) an exercise studio and a small office complex.

It begins at East College Avenue and currently ends in an elaborate barbed wire fence next to Academe. The extension will run another 250 feet emptying at Talley Street in front of the new Talley Upper Elementary.

Start date for construction remains uncertain. It will ultimately bisect a proposed residential-only development on the former AT&T parking lot that currently calls for 96 units.

The New extension will include a 24-foot wide street with on-street parking, four-foot wide planting/furniture zones, six-foot wide sidewalks, drainage infrastructure and three-way stop at Talley and New.

Developer Thrive EDS LLC is paying for the extension, but the entirety of New will remain a public street. In fact, extending New Street has been part of the city’s East Decatur master plan since the early 2000s. That plan also proposes extending or creating new east-west streets (including the now-truncated Freeman Street) from Commerce Drive to Sams Street and crossing New.

Assistant City Manager David Junger points out the New Street extension opens up a secondary route to the Talley Street Upper Elementary while also easing some of East College’s traffic burden.