The “Marietta Mudhole,” as some have taken to calling it, sits on the north side of town square, surrounded by a rickety chain link fence and accentuated by a huge blue tarp that flaps in the wind.
Longtime Councilman Philip Goldstein owns this eyesore that has, once again, put him cross ways with fellow city leaders, some merchants and passers-by. That’s OK with Goldstein, whose family owns three-quarters of the storefronts on the historic town square. The public kerfuffle is just one more bump in his lifelong quest to remake the square.
Goldstein wants to erect a five-story, 69-foot building on the lot. But the City Council — on which he has sat for 30 years — voted this month to limit building heights to 54 feet. The council argues that tall buildings would be out of character with the rest of the square’s structures.
Goldstein — who, more than once, has been compared to Mr. Potter, the callous slumlord featured in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” — says he has a vision for a bustling, rejuvenated square and that the council is interfering with his property rights.
The council meeting was theater of the absurd, with Goldstein leaving his seat on the council dais and addressing his increasingly irritated mates as a member of the public. Goldstein, who is a lawyer, threatened to sue the city because of the vote. The recent maneuvers have Mariettans clucking, there-goes-Philip-again (both friends and enemies refer to him by his first name).
“If they go into executive session to talk about legal matters, do they still include Philip?” asked Pete Waldrep, who bumped heads with Goldstein for 12 years on the council but considers him a friend. “You can’t have the wolf in the hen house.”
Stories abound about the indefatigable Goldstein and his goal of owning the entire square.
Bill Dunaway, a former mayor who battled Goldstein for much of the past decade, said his old rival keeps a Monopoly map of the square and colors in the properties that his family owns. That is true — almost. Goldstein keeps a yellowed plat map of downtown in his office and has indeed colored in parcels of his spreading real estate empire.
“He lives very frugally, and he’s very loyal to his family,” said Dunaway, whose family ran a drugstore on the square for decades and sold the property to Goldstein. “He truly has no concern what people think of him. He truly doesn’t care it’s an eyesore.”
The situation with the hole is simply “Philip being ornery,” he said, of him punishing the Marietta power structure for having fought his decades-long effort to build tall buildings on the square.
‘This is my heritage’
Goldstein, reserved and polite, flashes a faint smile hearing the criticisms. For the record, if he sues and the council goes into executive session, he’ll recuse himself, he said. No, he said, he isn’t purposely maintaining an eyesore to stick it to fellow council members. He said he hopes to start construction soon — if he can sign up a tenant with whom he is negotiating.
Over the years, he has tried several times to construct high-rise buildings on the square, but he said “economics and timing” have thwarted the efforts. “You have to fight to get [a permit] and then when you do, situations change,” he said.
He contends his current plans to construct a five-story building would be grandfathered in, so the new height limits would not apply to that project. But, he said, he still might sue the city because the vote was directed at him personally and limits the potential for other family-owned properties.
Property on the square is almost sacred to Goldstein. His grandfather, Philip Goldstein, opened a general merchandise store there in 1912 and bought a storefront in the 1930s after getting booted by a landlord to make way for a liquor store.
“Grandfather wanted to control his own destiny,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein’s father, Herbert, operated a clothing store until a few years ago. “He grew up on the square; it was his roots,” he said. “He passed it on to me. This is my heritage.” He hopes one day to turn over the family legacy to his two sons.
Herbert kicked off the family’s buying spree — and many say notoriety — when he bought the Strand Theatre in 1977 after it closed.
At the time, the square was dying, as customers moved their business to shopping malls. Tom Browning, a lawyer who has been in downtown Marietta since 1973, said the Goldsteins helped stabilize the square.
“They bought up property when people were bailing out of the square,” Browning said. “It was, ‘What sucker can we get to buy this? Oh, there’s Herbert. And also his son.’ They took the risk, They bought buildings no one else wanted.”
But Herbert Goldstein’s plans to put a McDonald’s on the site drew public anger. Philip said his father went before the City Council to get a demolition permit, but the council instead created a Historic Board of Review, which later shot down the plan. Philip said his dad was mistreated. The next year, 18-year-old Philip decided to run for City Council, having persuaded the city to change its age requirements. He lost that race but then moved to a district with many apartments and relatively low voter turnout. He won a couple of years later and has been a fixture ever since.
“People said terrible things at that [McDonald’s] meeting,” Dunaway said. “Philip remembers that meeting very vividly. He wants to show people that ‘whether or not you like the Goldsteins, we’ll be a factor in Marietta.’”
The list of Goldstein holdings is impressive: the entire north side of the square, most of the south side and some of the west side. The east side is Cobb County’s modernistic and monolithic court complex.
The Strand was renovated in the past decade by a citizens group that put $4.5 million in improvements into the building and rented it from the Goldsteins on a 50-year lease. The building will revert to the Goldstein family when Philip, now 52, is 98. He plans to be there.
Legacy of persistence
The Goldsteins, especially Philip, are nothing if not persistent. The plan for the five-story building is the newest in a long line of such proposals.
The family drew ire in the 1980s when the family proposed demolishing the Strand and building a 10-story office tower there and across the square.
And Goldstein battled the powers-that-be again in 2000 when he got approval for a 12-story building off the square that some complained would block the view of Kennesaw Mountain. None of those buildings was ever built, a point critics bring up when arguing that the hole on the square might remain for a long time.
Carrie Walker, a member of the task force appointed by the council last year to recommend height limits downtown, said Goldstein’s rush late last year to tear down the building was a maneuver to get the city to bend to his vision.
She said the square’s old-timey charm has allowed it to thrive as other downtowns have withered. (Two restaurants renting from Goldstein recently closed, but overall, the storefronts remain occupied.)
“He’s very smart, but he tries to get away with stuff,” she said. “I don’t think he’s pro-preservation. He’s pro-square. He has a business interest. His vision diverges with those in historic preservation.”
Former Mayor Vicki Chastain, mayor in the 1980s and often a Goldstein foe, said, “Everything he does on the City Council is to serve his family’s business interests.
“If Philip thought he could make money by building a 10-story building in the middle of Glover Park [the square’s green space], he’d do it,” she said.
Square historian?
That contention is ridiculous, Goldstein said.
In fact, he said, waving his hand at the numerous photos of the square over the years gracing the walls his cluttered office, he may be the square’s pre-eminent historian.
Goldstein occupies Suite P, which is at the end labyrinth of hallways on the second story over where the family clothing store once stood. He eschews occupying an office in the front of the building, one with pleasant views of the square, for simple economic reasons.
“Those are the most leasable,” he said. “This is the least leasable.”
When walking the square last week, Goldstein was asked if he owned the building at the corner of Atlanta Street and South Park Square. “Not yet,” he said with a smile.
Goldstein maintains many of the buildings on the square have been altered through the years, meaning they don’t meet the criteria for historic buildings. In fact, the square suffered fires in the 1920s, 1930s and 1960s, causing buildings to be rebuilt, he said.
Many of his critics and historic preservation activists have no real stake in Marietta’s downtown, he said.
“A lot of them would have a significantly different opinion if they had to make the note,” Goldstein said. “It’s easy to have an opinion when you have no skin in the game. It’s not how old a building is; the key is the architecture. Pickling and preserving it forever doesn’t lead to economic vitality. Would you stunt your child’s growth and never let him grow?”
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