Quote:
Originally Posted by NYbyWAYofGA
Atl is such a weird city. Stuff like this peeves the heck out of me...
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It's because the suburban conveniences are so embedded in our commercial real estates market.
A place like Marietta Street (or the whole Howell Mill Road corridor) can pretend to be urban, while still providing a huge amount of parking. This makes it be seen as "safe" for the retailers.
The biggest challenge for any truly urban retail in Atlanta is that we've ringed the core areas where the most vibrant retail "should" be, with dozens of satellite districts. This allows the stores to access the urban market without having to compromise their prototypes for the more difficult urban sites (e.g. lack of coordinated retail programming, lack of convenient on-site and street parking, irregular footprints, etc.). The Midtown Mile has struggled for this reason, as any commercial broker trying to lease there will attest. I believe its future is more residential oriented retail and services than destination retail like PCM, Westside Provisions, etc.
The only truly urban location that I think has any change of success is Centennial Yards/South Downtown. We're very fortunate to have two very, very long-term developers there who are working together to create a cohesive destination, as opposed to a haphazard collection of disconnected retail spaces.