After roughly 20 months of protests, appeals, and lawsuits, Atlanta developer Jeff Fuqua's proposed suburban-style project near Glenwood Park has taken a major step forward toward becoming a reality, reports Creative Loafing.
Earlier this afternoon, the Atlanta City Council approved an ordinance that changes 800 Glenwood Avenue from being "very high-density residential" to "mixed use high density" land use.
That technical change to the Comprehensive Development Plan, in simple English, actually paves the way for several buildings with a combination of residential and office units to be built adjacent to a proposed suburban-style retail complex. The shopping center will still feature a 143,000 square-foot anchor tenant that's rumored to be a Walmart. Fuqua and neighborhood leaders have spent months discussing changes, in which he agreed to bring his project more in line with what many residents have long hoped for along the 22-mile loop of trails and greenspace.
Grant Park Neighborhood Association President Lauren Rocereta says those revisions include plans to build an affordable senior housing center, a nine-story office building, a five-story residential complex with first-floor retail units, and a small food truck park. Along the Beltline, a "green wall" and additional retail spaces will effectively hide the parking lot from the path's view. The big-box anchor store, which will be constructed in the project's first phase before the additional structures, won't be visible from Glenwood Avenue, she says."We've worked long and hard to get a compromise," Rocereta says. "Everybody wants something more urban, but nobody gets everything in a compromise."
In the coming months, the GPNA president hopes that residents can meet with Walmart officials to discuss possible ways to make the site "more urban" as they've done for projects in cities such as Washington D.C.
http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2014...ine-story-office-building-along-beltline
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