Big doings in the Cumberland and Perimeter areas:
- Atlanta Braves stadium and mixed use campus: The Braves plan a $672 million stadium and $400 million mixed-use district near I-285 and I-75 and Cumberland Mall. The 45-acre mixed-use development around the stadium would become a year-round attraction, with shops, restaurants, bars, offices, hotels and residences. Opening date is 2017.
- City View: Developer Pope & Land Enterprises has proposed a second phase of its office campus near Cumberland Mall that will include a mix of residential and office space.
- State Farm: A four-office tower complex at the Dunwoody MARTA station and Perimeter Mall will include retail, a hotel and restaurants.
- Former Gold Kist site: Crown Holdings has not come forward with plans for the former Gold Kist headquarters along I-285 near Perimeter Mall, but its zoning allows two office towers and a hotel.
- 100 Northpark: Hines Interests has proposed office buildings, retail, residences and a hotel near the Sandy Springs MARTA stop at Abernathy Road and Ga. 400.
- High Street: A 30-acre-plus parcel just west of Dunwoody MARTA station is zoned for 3,000 residences, offices and retail. The project, announced by Boston-based developer GID in 2007, was never built but the property retains its zoning.
- Sandy Springs city center: The city council is weighing five development teams for a project at Roswell and Johnson Ferry roads that would include a city hall, performing arts center, parks, restaurants, retail and residential units.
Sources: Staff research, State Farm, Atlanta Braves, Hines, cities of Dunwoody and Sandy Springs and published reports.
Insurance giant State Farm plans four skyscrapers that will transform the skyline around Perimeter Mall.
The Atlanta Braves want to fill a new 42,000-seat stadium more than 80 days a year, and attract thousands of people every day, to a new mixed-use entertainment district near Cumberland Mall. Developers around both hubs are readying plans or have broken ground on thousands of apartments. More office towers could follow.
The Great Recession slowed the urbanization of the Cumberland and Central Perimeter districts, but an awakening economy — and the big moves by State Farm and the Braves — have kick-started the development engine.
It means jobs and investment. But the return of such massive development also brings back a familiar side effect: Added congestion in areas already choked at peak hours.
“We can’t kill the quality of life that’s made this area popular,” said Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul, who’s excited to see development return but said it should also prompt new discussion of regional transportation fixes.
The Cumberland and Central Perimeter areas invite new construction and corporate expansion because of the infrastructure that’s been developed in these districts over several decades.
Officials in Cumberland and the Sandy Springs-Dunwoody areas say the next wave will have more high-density residential that they hope appeals to millennials who generally eschew cars and want to live near their jobs — meaning more walking and transit trips.
A grab-bag of road and other drawing board projects could mitigate the new growth spurt, though maybe not soon.
A new I-285/Ga. 400 interchange is one of the state’s top priorities, but the half-billion dollar project is about one-fifth funded and construction is years away. The state’s loftiest transportation plan – an $900-million-plus managed toll lane project through Cumberland and along I-75 and I-575 – is scheduled to start this year.
But there are few concrete transit plans to get motorists out of their cars.
MARTA is in the earliest stages of examining a rail or rapid bus expansion up Ga. 400 to Alpharetta, as Cobb County leaders ponder a rapid transit bus line to MARTA in Midtown.
Officials in the Cumberland and Central Perimeter areas are working on pedestrian connections between cloistered office parks and trolley systems to move workers and residents around these city centers. Both areas are self-taxing districts, which means costs of such projects would be at least partly borne by businesses in them.
In Sandy Springs, a city plan to build a town center on Roswell Road — to include a city hall, performing arts center as well as apartments — is designed to attract both jobs and residents who want to walk to work.
Metro voters in 2012 soundly rejected a regional transportation sales tax plan that included dozens of projects that Paul said tried to please too many constituencies and wouldn’t provide enough congestion relief.
There’s limited transportation money to go around, said Paul, and creative financing will be needed.
“We do need a multijurisdictional solution,” he said.
The Cumberland Community Improvement District has raised more than $100 million over 25 years in the self-taxing district to help fund about a half billion dollars in interchange improvements, new roads and sidewalks.
Planned interchange work at Windy Hill Road and I-75, a widening of U.S. 41 and 14 points of access to a new stadium complex are among the reasons the Braves chose a 60-acre site in Cumberland for the new $1 billion-plus ballpark and entertainment district.
“A significant portion of the Braves’ decision to move to that site is the transportation infrastructure that has been put in place,” said Tad Leithead, chairman of the Cumberland CID.
With scores of residential units in planning or development, and projects like the trolley system and pedestrian bridges and trails, the Cumberland area is becoming both denser and more walkable, Leithead said. But he said that rapid transit links to Atlanta and east along I-285 are critical for future growth.
Yvonne Williams, who heads the self-taxing Perimeter Community Improvement Districts, said without tens of millions of district dollars invested in interchange improvements, sidewalk construction and other traffic management efforts, her jurisdiction wouldn’t have grown as it has.
The PCIDs led the way for projects including a redesign of the Ashford Dunwoody Road and I-285 interchange and a new exit at Hammond Drive and Ga. 400.
But the commute through the region is a considerable concern for area businesses, she said.
State Farm, AirWatch and Atlanta Journal-Constitution parent Cox Enterprises chose to expand in the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody area because of MARTA access and the road upgrades, Williams said.
The area has four MARTA stops on the north-south Red line, all primed for high-density development. A MARTA priority is to encourage development at stations on land it owns.
But the area lacks east-west rail connections. A rapid bus system studied for the top end of the Perimeter between Cumberland and Doraville needs to be revisited, Williams said.
“There’s no time for the status quo,” Williams said.
State Farm plans one of the largest corporate campus projects in metro Atlanta history near the Dunwoody MARTA station at Perimeter Mall. The site will ultimately house as many as 8,000 employees, with work on the first building starting this summer.
Michael Starling, head of economic development for Dunwoody, said about 15 percent of State Farm’s current workforce in the area uses MARTA. He said the expected growth of rental housing was a factor in the decision.
Hundreds of apartments are under construction along Hammond Drive. A site just north of the State Farm tract is zoned for 3,000 residential units as well as office buildings and retail. Developer GID, which shelved plans to develop the site in 2007, declined to comment on whether they will be renewed.
Two other developers – Crown Holdings and Hines Interests – control sites near the Dunwoody and Sandy Springs MARTA stations where they could build office towers, hotels and housing.
“If you look at the map, all of the development (in Central Perimeter) is happening around MARTA,” Starling said.
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