Public transit in Atlanta sucks.
If you’re planning on going out this Friday night, driving that gas-guzzler is probably the only option — and parking in Atlanta’s almost always a nightmare.
Want to take a taxi? Good luck finding one. And is Marta really “smarta?”
Think really hard about this one, Marta fans: our commuter rail system only travels in the four cardinal directions (and the short northeast line). So where does that take us? Braves games, trips to see the Thrashers, Falcons or Hawks, Six Flags, The Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia and the airport.
Sounds like Marta was designed for tourists…
So it should come as no surprise that the extremly busy Midtown Promenade shopping center — anchored by Trader Joes and Midtown Art Cinemas — wised up and is expanding their parking. And from our personal experience, the shopping center’s current parking situation’s a bitch.
Located near Peidmont Park on Monroe Drive, Midtown Promenade filed a permit with the city of Atlanta Friday to begin work on expanding their parking.
In addition to increasing the amount of parking, the lot will be repaired and re-stripped, according to the permit.
(Photo credit: Pecanne Log)
The shopping center’s owner was not immeditatley available for comment. But what are your thoughts: more shops or parking?
61 Responses
More parking! Without ample parking and so many choices on where to shop, the ease of parking and getting in/out of a retail location, is key! Good for Midtown Promenade.
Expand it how?
hi jennifer — specfics on what space/land they’ll use has not been confirmed. the only info available is from a permit filed friday that notes parking with be expanded for the center.
–cjs
maybe they’ll knock down those horrible restaurants on the north end of the complex… rice box, f.r.o.g.s, jersey mikes, etc.
I’ve always thought they could bridge the parking between the theater lot and the Home Depot/Whole Foods/Pet Smart lot. It would also make it much easier to get travel between the two.
@Vanilla- save MetroFresh!
It’ll be interesting to see what they do, for sure.
I wish that there could be some kind on connection with the parking lot at the Home Depot on Ponce… Much of that parking in the very rear of the lot goes unused at the time that the theater in Midtown Promenade needs it most. Shared parking would be the smartest solution for MP parking issues.
@Skipster and Jeffery, yes that is the best idea. A multistory deck needs to be built that connects those two lots. If it were situated in the rear of the midtown lot it would make it a perfect access point to connect to the beltline as well.
Why the hatred for public transit? Sure, things could be better — but Midtown Promenade is served by multiple bus lines. It sounds like the author is one of those people who are grudgingly willing to take the train, but who WILL NOT(!) get on a bus. Those of use who actually use MARTA know that the train is good for long distances — but the bus is far, far more convenient for local connections. Get a clue BEFORE you write next time.
How exciting! More parking for what is already a suburban-style shopping center in the heart of the Midtown/Virginia-Highland area.
They need to tear down the whole front of the center (Trader Joes, Richards Variety Shop, etc) and rebuild it to hug Piedmont and 8th Street. Then, build a parking deck with residential on top that would front the Beltline and serve both the new Trader Joes as well as the theater/Apres Diem side of the complex.
But of course, this costs money so it won’t happen. At the very least, the property owners would be smart to take advantage of their prime beltway location and build a residential/parking structure that bridges the Midtown Promenade and Midtown Place shopping centers on top of the existing surface lot in that location. Imagine living there – on the Beltline sandwiched between a Trader Joes, a Whole Foods, and a Theater. It would be an amazing spot.
Or, if Marta got their head out of their a$$ and thought about building a line down Ponce in between Peachtree & Moreland, in lieu of the idea of extending into John’s Creek, the parking lot could conceivably be left alone.
Jonathan- I too have dreams about the redevelopment of this site. Swoon :(. I think the biggest challenge would be neighborhood resistance. They already don’t want the Mint Salon center to become anything but greenspace.
In the meantime, the most realistic thing to do is bridge the connection between Promenade and Place. It is one of my greatest planning pet peeves in this city.
This is great, except it still doesn’t help with the parking in that area, as I’m sure there will be “tow-away” notices discouraging visitors to the Park from parking there. Any thoughts on that?
It’d be nice if we could get our sh!t together to make Marta acceptable. Like for reals, we don’t compete in transit. It’s embarrassing and it hurts our city something serious. We should pass the 1 cent tax and get the state legislature to give some funding to our transit system. I hear that ours is the only system in a big metro that isn’t given some funding from the state or province in the U.S. or Canada. C’mon! Our city is great. Let’s treat it like it.
@ Joe – Everyone who actually rides Marta knows that the buses are effectively worthless. They are constantly late, run extremely slowly, and are subject to the same traffic that everyone else is subject to. They are inefficient at best. So, unless you have hours of free time to spend waiting on buses, it’s either rail (assuming it takes you where you need to go) or a car.
Expanding parking, where there is already plenty, in an in-town urban area is counter-productive to any hope of transforming Atlanta into a real urban center.
I’d also like to see a connection to Home Depot. I is so silly to have to go so far around to get there.
Thank heavens! My friend and I were just driving around yesterday and talking of how difficult it is to park in many places in Midtown. My car is my lifeline to the outside world — why would this mean city make it so difficult for me to find ample, free parking?
When I drive my car out of my driveway and motor around the city, I expect to be able to stop conveniently at any store. The city should ensure that all citizens have an empty 8 foot wide, 15 foot long asphalt pad eagerly awaiting them at every shopping center and restaurant.
Public transit, indeed! As if I want to spend my afternoon sitting next to a bunch of poverty-stricken riff raff on a bus. I can see them now, lustily eying my Trader Joes bags and scheming to take them from me. No thank you, very much.
I’ll feel much more safe and secure in my car, shuttling myself from my proud enclave of affluence to the stores that cater to my needs. That way I can easily detach myself from the concerns of the lower economic classes and not be burdened by them. Now pardon me as I drive to the other end of this shopping mall so I can visit the stores on that side. I love Atlanta!
I always assumed they purposely did not connect the two projects due to community pressure. The resulting giant parking lot would closely resemble the “Hamsterdam” experiment from The Wire. I’ve never inspected the fence line myself, but I always pictured zombie-like crackheads clawing at the chain link, trying to get at the fresh meat leaving the movie.
When the Great Mall of China shopping center was redeveloped into Midtown Place (the Home Depot and Whole Foods) about ten years ago the neighborhoods around that area were adamant that the shopping center not be connected to the Midtown Promenade center. Another part of that deal was to “one way” Lakeview Avenue at Ponce de Leon (the road that comes out by Eats).
Midtown Promenade was built in the early 1990s as basically a suburban concept shoved into an urban area (it even had a Winn Dixie, remember?). It would be nice to see some of the principles of connectivity and a thoughtful grid system for the streets be implemented but I’m not holding my breath.
Urbanist – I agree with the need for some east west transit on ponce or north (and 10th as well), but won’t the streetcars still sit in traffic as well?
Well, I was referring to a Marta rail line…with future development being modeled on somewhat of a Parisian model of public transport. If running a streetcar along Ponce were the answer, then this would obviously be done on a private track, not subject to traffic.
well if the beltline progress continues, we could have a rail line running about 2 blocks from this location…
Buses in Atlanta suffer from much the same effect that some public schools do: People with high expectations and standards won’t have anything to do with them.
As long as people who have a choice continue to think that they’re too busy and important to wait for buses, the service will continue to be sub-par. Right now, the vast majority of people riding MARTA’s buses – especially midday, evenings and weekends – are people who don’t have cars. If they’re left waiting inordinately long times, have routes and schedules changed every few months or (as has happened to me four times in the last six months) have buses just blow right by them at a bus stop, they have no leverage to demand that MARTA do better. They can’t say “Get it together or I’ll buy my transportation service elsewhere.”
In DC I rode buses with people talking about boat payments and private school tuition, with women carrying purses that cost more than I make in a week and engagement rings worth more than I make in a couple of months, with unpaid interns hoping they have enough money to put on their farecards to get all the way home, and with people who had been washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms all day – all on the same bus. Every one of them expected a robust, efficient transit system. Some of them could have driven if Metro wasn’t on its game. But first they’d be be lighting up the phones and the inboxes, demanding to know why they weren’t getting what they paid for.
MARTA knows that the people who have to ride the buses have grown accustomed to being treated shabbily. They have no choice but to keep paying more for less service. So, instead of working on BRT or light rail on Piedmont between Roswell Road and Georgia State Station on Ponce between Peachtree and Moreland – projects with a ready, willing, built-in customer base – they’re fantasizing about nonsense like heavy rail out to the suburbs.
Besides, it would do a lot of people in this city some good to spend time waiting for and riding buses. Maybe then they could read some newspapers and magazines. The appalling, astonishing depth of ignorance displayed in the comment sections at the AJC and local news stations is downright demoralizing.
Yesterday at Civic Center Station, I was talking to a guy, probably in his sixties, who said he’d been using transit in Atlanta for 42 years. I was really surprised to hear him say that the city’s bus service was once excellent, with buses “coming and going every 5 or 10 minutes, all over the place.” But, he said, ever since the rail system was built, bus service has gotten progressively worse, with the deterioration of service massively accelerating in the last ten years. Apparently the idea was to sort of push people toward using the rail system by making the bus system more and more of a pain. I remember Maria Saporta writing something to that effect last year as well. Of course, all this was back when there were plans for a much more well-developed rail system than we ended up with.
That should say “ON Ponce between Peachtree and Moreland…”
Anyone know what was on the Whole Foods shopping center site before it was built, but after the ball park was torn down?
This article makes you sound extremely ignorant. But I guess that’s your schtick.
Also, Urbanist, I must disagree with your comment about buses. As someone who rides them every day I find them to be reliable and useful.
So, the question is, what does it take to get Marta better? I’ve sent numerous emails to Beverly Scott. She responded to them, but she did so with classic political zest. Her responses empathized with my concerns, justified my complaints, and then completely ignored my thoughts and ideas offered up as solutions. When I sent a follow up email, I got a curt “thank you for your thoughts. We’ll consider them.” type of response.
With the latest fare increases, the people that are paying for them are primarily the in-town population; the ones who actually use the system. Yet the fare increases are going to serve “regional transportation”, which, as I understand it, are initiatives like the extension into John’s Creek.
I really just don’t know how this stuff gets passed. I can’t find a single person who thinks a Marta extension north into John’s Creek is a better investment than a line down Ponce, or a loop around West Midtown, or something into one of the many neighborhoods of Atlanta with no dependable link to public transportation.
returning from the bay area, i can truly say that MARTA, most simply put, sucks. it is inefficient, too expensive, and not safe. if you ride in the bay area, sf-oakland, it is amazing. you truly do not need a car between rail and bus.
as for midtown promenade, that is great news! i have seen a fist fight there once at christmaas time over parking. it was astonishing. and as one comment said, the restaurants, except metro fresh, are basically no good. so what if they got great restaurants also, as well as better shopping. parking is really needed there! (as are great restaurants!)
also, to make it a truly friendly urban environment, save gas and be efficient, they should open the space b/w whole foods and TJ’s. it seems everytime i go to tj’s i get in my car and drive another 2 miles to go to whole foods or home depot.
as for the guy who asked about what was in the whole foods location before whole foods but after the ball park, it was the great mall of china. a huge flop and nothing there. it was a little freaky, so of course i checked it out – lol. my dad actaully won a car from a raffle ticket at the ball park when he was 16! fun story. however he was a minor and had to give it to his dad, who let him drive it!
yeah for more parking! and yeah for the promenade bringing life back to our neighborhood – now with more parking, if they can just get the restaurants and shopping right, it will be great!
This is interesting conversation. MARTA was originally built to serve captured riders, not choice riders. Its quality and layout reflect that. I agree that it would be pointless to spend a few hundred million dollars to extend a line to Johns Creek in order to serve wealthy suburbanites who choose to live all the way out in that charmless area.
I also think it is silly that the surrounding neighborhoods rallied to prevent any sort of connection to Midtown Promenade. Was Promenade that bad back then?
Here is a synopsis of retail owners/developers in that area, just so they are on the record.
Midtown Promenade – Built in 1988 by Ackerman & Co., which still owns it. 93.5% leased with 601 surface spaces currently. It is 108,031 SF, which means it has a parking ratio of 5.56 spaces per 1,000 SF. That is standard and occasionally even high for suburban areas. Wow. Also, Ackerman & Co is local, and they have a lot of small NNN properties in the core, but they aren’t big infill developers with lots of experience in that department. This is one of their largest properties.
Midtown Place where the Whole Foods, Smoothie King, and Qdoba are, was developed in 1995 by Sembler (the developers of many a shopping center in town including the multi floor center where Filene’s Basement is in Buckhead and Town Brookhaven). The Home Depot is a shadow anchor. It has over 9 spaces per 1,000 SF. WOW. Coro owns the center now. Coro has also made a mark on Atlanta (05 Buckhead, Gallery condos, Buckhead Station where the Gordon Biersch is, Hudson Grille Midtown, and others).
Ansley Mall was developed in 1968 and is now owned and managed by Selig, which is a major player in Atlanta (and partner to 12th and Midtown). They developed the Plaza Midtown and the District at Howell Mill (relatively urban Walmart shadow center with TJ Maxx and shops). They have done a good job with Ansley, and we can probably count on Selig for continued beneficial projects/ownership.
Kroger owns the Kroger center on Ponce and the Shops at Ford Factory (the old loft/commercial building next to City Hall East). They have done a decent job with the shops in the old Ford building.
Publix on Piedmont (across from Aloha sushi and where there is also a Walgreens) is owned and developed by Sembler, as well. Very suburban oriented.
Publix owns the Publix owns the standalone Publix on Ponce.
Halpern Enterprises owns Amsterdam Walk off of Monroe. It was developed in 1950 and has 73.8% occupancy. It has a more urban format with less parking, but it is still scattered. The only other thing Halpern owns intown that is of interest is the Publix center on Cheshire Bridge.
Clear Creek center on Piedmont where the Rusan’s is is owned by Mews Development. They are locally based on Defoors Ferry and are more known for their industrial/office properties. I think it is their only shopping center.
Midtown Connection on Monroe where the Arden’s Garden is is owned by Jodaco, Inc and leased by Graham & Arthur.
Basically we need Coro and Ackerman & Co to cooperate someday and join their two centers. Selig has a history of great developments, one can only hope they do something.
Yes, indeed, why extend a line to north Fulton?! It’s not like those residents pay taxes to fund MARTA!
Oh, wait, yes they do.
But they must be rich. So they don’t deserve anything from the government. It’s not like they fund the majority of the government.
Oh, wait, yes they do.
But, yes, let’s run a transit line through the crack-infested heart of Ponce. I’m sure there would be nothing but law abiding, urban hipsters, polite riders on the line.
The parking at Midtown Promenade has been very “challenging” for those of us who own businesses there. The city via neighborhood association has consitantly said “no” to any new parking scheme. Finally there is movement to make this much needed improvement to the center. The new plan will add spaces but no more asphalt! It’s awesome.
@ Kevin – as a clear proponent of the suburbs, you make it abundantly clear what life in a typical suburb does to the brain. Nobody said, or even implied, that residents of the suburbs don’t pay taxes, part of which end up in the city coffers.
The clear issue with extending Marta into the burbs is that it is completely unnecessary. Not only does virtually everyone who lives in the burbs own a car, but given the option between Marta and driving, suburbanites choose driving 99.9% of the time. Extending Marta into the burbs provides Betty Homemaker and Johnny Middle-Management a ride to the airport for the occasional flight, and their kids a trip down to the dome every once in a while. Developing an efficient network of public transportation routes in the city provides connectivity and access to job centers, it improves neighborhoods, and it links people together in a way that they can collaborate together.
Public transportation is an urban necessity, not a suburban amenity. I know they don’t teach you that on the 2 channels you watch – FoxNewsUltra and FoxNewsSupreme, and I know you probably think God hates city-folk (not sure if that’s standard southern religious rhetoric or not, but it sounds like it could be), but you should really leave the thoughtful conversation about urban development to other people, and get back to the things that are in your intellectual wheelhouse, like yardwork.
Couldn’t have responded to Kevin better myself, Urbanist. Providing a ride into town for people who have made poor lifestyle choices should not be MARTA’s goal. First, I should be able to get to our city neighborhoods like VaHi or Inman Park from the core of Midtown, instead of now being able to get to NONE of them. Also, expanding north should first go to relevant places like Galleria where people actually work. Not 30 miles into an area with nothing so that they can actually get to someplace relevant.
In between the old Ponce de León Ballpark, home of the Atlanta Crackers and Atlanta Black Crackers, and the Great Mall of China was a discount store, Arlan’s, which like Wal-Mart had both groceries and a K-Mart selection of goods. (It also had another location on Piedmont, near the current location of MARTA’s HQ at 2424 Piedmont.) At first very successful, it gradually deteriorated and then went out of business. (I don’t know the reason for the deterioration.) The Great Mall used the same building, with a very leaky roof, as Arlan’s, but never attracted all that much business. Sembler tore down the building, and the site is now part of the parking lot at Midtown Place.
The Midtown Promenade absolutely needs this additional parking. The fact that the center has the average number of spaces per square foot does not account for the movie theater. Dinner and a movie means your car is taking a space for 3 hours, not like if you were running in and out in 15 minutes. Customers have no patience for circling a parking lot for 20 minutes to find a spot.
As it stands now, this city is a driving city for most residents who don’t happen to live and work by a rail station. A bus ride in this city is a dismal experience. A recent story on FOX news, following a bus rider being dragged 50 feet by a bus, focused on the number of complaints about rude bus operators.
@Mitchell – so you’ve seen the plans? Is it going to be some kind of structured parking? Do tell!
Also, at first I thought the Great Mall of China thing was just some kind of nickname, but now I’m getting the sense that it was actually named that lol. What kind of things did that place sell?
The Great Mall of China was indeed the name and it was this really odd structure that was at least two stories tall. I remember going in there and they had all kinds of Asian furnishings on sale. it seemed to me that they might sublease parts of it to other vendors but it never seemed to get off the ground. Such an odd concept and completely out of character for Ponce.
How about stairs between the 2 shopping centers and agreement not to tow for shopping in the other… As for the person who commented about towing while at Piedmont Park – they should be towed!
So I take it they’re merely going to restripe the parking lot making smaller space to fit more cars?
@ Urbanist and JT-
A classic completely erroneous assumptions on your part (Shocker, I realize.)
I’m not a proponent of the suburbs. I live in Midtown. Smack dab in the middle of Midtown. But I work in the northern ‘burbs. I would give my eye teeth to have a viable transit alternative to work.
Now go ahead and blame my company for locating in the suburbs and how they should be punished for making such a poor decision.
JT, I particularly like your use of the term “relevant”– and the implication that priorities that differ from yours aren’t relevant. What a remarkably stunning display of arrogance.
As a neighbor to this shopping center I can state from some historical experience that the ownership of these two properties (they are different owners) are not interested in connecting them for vehicular traffic. They know they will be overwhelmed with through traffic trying to avoid the Monroe / Ponce intersection during peak hours.
And neither owner really has any interest in connecting these for pedestrian traffic either, as they assume their lot will be used for customers of the other center, and vice versa, which already happens quite frequently even with the current configuration.
Part of the Beltline master plan for this area calls for extending 8th street through both of these properties over to Ponce. If this ever actually happens, it is at this point that the shopping centers may possibly be rebuilt for a more urban fit. Probably will not happen until then though.
@ Kevin – Ok, so a wrong assumption. However, you set it up by decrying a more extensive public transportation network in lieu of extending public transportation to the suburbs. You didn’t help yourself by declaring Ponce, “crack infested”.
The problem with your thought process is that it exacerbates the problem. The strongest force that works against Atlanta’s attempts to “urbanize” is suburban sprawl. Suburban sprawl, while it’s fine for those who choose to live that way, and trade urban amenities for suburban ones, shouldn’t ever be a compelling factor for a city’s development plans.
Extending Marta would provide public transport for a few additional riders who live in-town and work in the burbs. However, because of how big and sparse the burbs are, it is virtually impossible for any public transportation system to provide efficient and easy access to an area of that size. That is why Marta fails when is comes to it’s suburban expansions. What it’s never really tried, however, is connecting itself to the rest of the city, and providing fluidity across the urban areas of Atlanta. This model has proven effective in many many cities across the globe.
So, while I’m sure it would be great to give you and a few other people a ride to Alpharetta, there are a lot of other people who need that ride across town, or into the city more. You might be surprised to find out that many of them are not crackheads either…
Actually, the reason for not connecting the two centers is an historic magnolia tree. Sounds strange, but it’s true. Don’t always assume the worst of developers, folks. I’m sure they would love the cross traffic.
Urbanist, chill the hell out. I live happily intown and harbor my fair share of contempt for the ‘burbs, but the snideness and condescension of some of your last couple of posts — not to mention the swiftness with which you resort to gross stereotypes about suburbanites (which, by the way, are just as poorly-conceived as the archetypical surburbanite rants about urbanites) — actually make me want to defend them somewhat. I suspect that’s hardly the response you want to evoke out of people.
Turning a blind eye to the realities of our city does no one any good. The reality is that a larger than usual chunk of our population lives outside the city. Like it or not, we’re in a sybmiotic relationship with them, and I’m at a loss as to why Kevin’s mention of rail to North Fulton (80% of which support transit) hardly deserves such derision. Decreasing commuting congestion (on top of providing intown access) is a fine goal of any transit system, as that makes us more attractive to businesses and future residents.
Who are these “Thrashers” you speak of in your post, Caleb. They are placed with local sporting clubs so I’m assuming they’re one too?
hi harry, that’s atlanta’s ice hockey team.
–cjs
The historic magnolia tree is behind the Whole Foods, adjacent to the beltline. The two developments are separated by a thin buffer and have parking on both sides of the divide.
http://wikimapia.org/10947726/Ponce-de-Leon-Park-Magnolia-Tree
@ TeeJay – looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree. While I don’t think it’s ever right to judge a book by it’s cover, I also believe stereotypes exist for a reason. So, since we’re talking about “suburbia” as a whole, some generalizations have to be made. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but the stereotypes that are common about the burbs are so because of the large portions of people who inspire them.
I also disagree with your second point. It’s been the complacency and the lack of proactive action by our city that has placed us in the debilitating relationship that wer’re in with the burbs. What we need now is to build our city and impose the appropriate social costs on those who want to use it, but not live in it. For example, instead of spending money and allocating resources (like Marta) into the suburbs at the expense of improved transportation in the city, we should be imposing a congestion tax on commuters, expanding public transportation in the city, and using congestion tax revenues to incentivize businesses to locate/re-locate in the city.
Everyone responds to incentives – whether positive or negative – and a lot of Atlanta’s problems are the result of a city that caters to millions, but maintains a population of approximately 420k. Marta riders are being penalized with fare increases (negative incentives) while suburbanites are being rewarded. Can you imagine what kind of backlash you would get from the 400 corridor if the toll were to raise fares? Yet Marta increases it’s pass costs by nearly 50% to fund improvements that will rarely be used by the people that are paying them. Point is, Atlanta needs to start making it’s relationship with the burns more reciprocal, and less reliant.
If the Thrashers comment was real and the actual editor of the site doesn’t realize they’ve relocated then I have lost all faith in What Now as any type of source of local goings on. News flash: Atlanta doesn’t have an ice hockey team.
hi jt– that info was pulled from marta’s website as places marta will get you. not a sports person and don’t need to be for the information we’re publishing. fyi, this happened recently:
i’ve updated the info.
–cjs
I have to say I have been enjoying this conversation about the shopping centers, lack of parking and Marta. I have lived here now 15 years and mostly in the downtown condo for that time. I shop at the places on Ponce like Home Depot and Staples as it is easy to park and they have what I want. I only once in a blue moon shop at the place on Monroe, as they really offer anything I want there for the most part and the parking is atrocious…we used to love to go there when the ice cream place was there, but then it closed. Once in awhile we will go to one of hte fast food places there, but that’s it.
As for Marta, it is abysmal, it takes me usually 90mins to 2 hrs if I want to go anywhere that involves a bus, that is because of the slowness and the irregular times the busses come or don’t come as it were. I avoid Marta as much as I can because I don’t feel like taking 4 hrs to commute for a 2hr event..makes no sense to do that. Every other city I have traveled or lived in…Washington DC, NYC, Boston…transit is way far superior to Atlanta. Correcting or Fixing Marta looks like it will never happen in my lifetime, as long as the State of GA refuses to get involved and the Mata system refuses to be “fixed”. Very sad for such a great city!
“Atlanta doesn’t have an ice hockey team”
Thank goodness! A complete waste of time and resources not once but twice removed. We live in the SOUTH and we play football not silliness on ice. 🙂
Miami and Tampa both have hockey teams.
Ok, lig, I understand your points about vehicular through traffic if they were to open up the two centers and connect them somehow, and I understand your point or someone else’s point about the theater (I always forget that thing is over there), but your point about “stealing customers away” is mute. Retailers thrive on each other, so having more people being able to access other shops/shopping centers conveniently creates more of a draw and more of a critical mass and thus helps business. That’s why shops need to be next to anchors and why shopping centers cluster next to each other. The few occasions where this does not work is if there are too many grocery centers for the local demographic, etc.
Atlanta will never have a grid. It’s the most un-gridded city I have ever been to outside of Europe. That’s my preface and rebuttal to someone regarding connecting the two centers via the access way that exists at the back of the parking lot of Midtown Place. The way the shopping centers are set up now, it probably would not work efficiently because it would create backups and would inconvenience people who are trying to leave the parking lots, but that is only because Sembler was a little shortsighted here when building the Midtown Place and they configured it like a suburban strip center.
Now if only the two centers provided parking via garages/hidden garages and made their centers (speaking more about Place than Promenade) more walkable, then a road going through could have worked. Said road could have been right across from the entrance to the parking for City Hall East, and the city could have provided a light there and done something with the other light (of course they don’t align because nothing does in Atlanta).
If this were a grid, things really could have been different. The through road could have aligned with the existing light at Glen Iris and Ponce. The whole area could have been different. Still, even here in Atlanta I have seen smart people in the City and in private development firms come up with some very neat solutions for even the toughest of problems. Something can and needs to be done about the area.
And furthermore, if Atlanta weren’t such a cluster****, then Glen Iris could have been built to extend to that drive that separates the residential from the shopping centers, Lakeview, which could easily have been built to serve as the through way that connects directly to where the curve is that leads to the back parking of Midtown Promenade, which then connects directly to 8th Street, which goes all the way to the Connector (of course it has weird one way segments).
The whole street could have been named 8th Street and served as a through way for Midtown (going both directions, which would slow down traffic and create more connectivity) and as an access point and through way for the two shopping centers, and then it could have done the Atlanta thing and changed names to Glen Iris at Ponce and provided access to City Hall East soon to be the Jamestown development across the street. Midtown Place’s plot could have been more of a regular shape, too, and we could have had another road that would foster denser development, being that it would serve as a connector.
Oh, what could have been. Instead, look at a map and gawk at the crappiest planning you have ever seen. And side note about Grady being there. Perhaps more kids could have been able to walk. Traffic would not be a problem if 8th going by it would be busier.
How can they expand parking without adding asphalt? I think the spaces are small enough!
Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the issue solved soon. Kudos
hi beatrice — thanks for the note. looks fine on our end. where exactly are you experiencing difficulties? thanks!
–cjs
As long as they dont increase the asphalt, I support it. I think they should connect the parking lots of Promenade and Midtown Place, light it very well, and just let overflow from the theatre park in home depots area since no one is going there at night. Its a logical solution.
Does anyone know the company that is coming into the space next to Tuesday Morning? I heard it is an urgent care and am wondering which company? If anyone knows please reply.
Hi Kristy, yes – it’s Harken Health: https://whatnowatlanta.com/harken-health-midtown/ ~ CJS