Allen Plaza Thread

[smArTaLlone]

^^ I'm also thinking it may be two towers given the number of units mentioned.

[ATLonthebrain]

It seems as if the apartments will be in a single building, and then the condo and hotel in another. If you combine the condo/hotel you get 356 units, and also those two are becoming all the rage in mixed-use highrise construction today. A single building with 750 units would take up the entire block at 42-stories, don't we agree, and look like a big continuous wall? Then again, these two buildings will also take up the block, but do it more effectively, I think. There will probably be a single base with all of the retail and parking, and then the twin towers rising opposite each other, with entrances on different streets. Wow, the northwest side of Downtown is going to look entirely different by the start of the next decade! And there's more to come, because based on reports here and there, much has yet to be announced.

[micropundit]

And there's more to come, because based on reports here and there, much has yet to be announced.

Such as....?

[mayhem]

Originally Posted by micropundit

Such as....?

The rest of Allen Plaza.

[Larry Felton Johnson]

Originally Posted by Terminus

For some time I have been alluding to the fact that the Allen Plaza development is going to be far greater than previously announced - on the scale of the type or quality urbanism that we all hoped Atlantic Station would be, but failed to achieve.

This month's Urban Land magazine provides some tantalizing public details on their nine-block plans for Centennial Hill:
- 2 million sf of office
- 2 hotels (500 total rooms)
- 2,500 - 3,000 residential units (in over a dozen high-rises)
- 200,000 sf of retail

This is consistent with what I've heard about plans to create a very urban neighborhood, on the lines of Portland's Pearl District or Vancouver's West End, including some great ground floor retailers.

The article goes on to note that construction will begin by the end of the year on the Post component, which will include:
- 500 residential units
- 40,000 sf of retail (likely a grocery store)
- 200 room hotel

When coupled with Twelve Centennial, Centennial House, Peachtree Towers, Centennial Park East, and the build-out of the Museum Tower block, I believe that the area will create one of the highest density areas in the Southeast. Best of all, it's will all be within a short walk of two MARTA stations and existing Downtown businesses.


I also hear that plans to redesign Ivan Allen to add trees and on-street parking will be proceeding soon.

This is fantastic news, Caleb. Just having a grocery store within walking distance of my workplace would make the project notable to me. But the prospect of residential density combined with significant Downtown commercial space makes it awesome. I've made the analogy in the past that Midtown is our Manhattan, the eastside is our Brooklyn, and the westside is our Bronx. This project could extend "Manhattan" into the true historic center of our city.

[Terminus]

The Downtown Development Review Committee reviewed the first phase of Post Allen Plaza for the block bounded by West Peachtree Place, COP Drive, Simpson and Williams Street on Friday. I must confess that I was quite impressed - so, THERE, to those who say I'm always negative

The project is on a very tight site, but fortunately they hired a quality architecture firm - Cooper Carry (the same firm that did The Aramore, the first phase of Lindbergh City Center, and 905 Juniper) - that understands urbanism. As such, the plan relates well to the street on all block faces with first floor retail (that even steps down the hill), doors, attractive loading docks, a quality streetscape and new on-street parking.

The program includes a 202 room hotel, 175 condos, 350+/- apartments and 30,000 sf of retail and around 900 parking spaces (including public spaces).

The building is a tower on a podium typology. It includes a six floor, traditionally designed base for the 1/3 of the block facing Williams Street. the base of the remaining 2/3 of the block is a traditional limestone and precast "stone" base of 9 floors. On top of the base is an "L" shaped tower that sets back slightly from the base (other than a narrow sliver on Simpson). The long side of the "L" is parallel to Simpson Street. The tower is designed to look like two towers. The long leg of the "L" is a glass and precast "stone" tower rising 42 floors (450 feet +/-) above COP Drive, while the lower 19 (?) floor short leg is all glass. It is truly elegant; traditional yet with a contemporary flair.

The condos occupy the top floors of the long leg of the "L." Below them is the hotel. The short leg of the "L" is the apartment tower.

The best thing about this project is that, unlike every Novare project, the podium is NOT parking, so there are actually living units or hotel rooms facing the street on the base along COP Drive, Williams Street, Simpson Street and half of West Peachtree. The parking is underground and internal to the block, other than a small portion along West Peachtree Place. On said facade, the garage facade is no different from the rest of the building.

They plan to break ground in April on this block, and will be coming in soon for approval of more housing and retail on the block to the east. They also are developing plans for the other half of the Museum Tower block, as well as several other area blocks (as previously noted).

On a final note, I have heard that Centennial Park East (Integrals planned project on COP Drive and Ivan Allen Blvd) is dead and that the site is going on the market as another mixed-use site.

[jason21atl]

Fantastic news, any renderings?

[scania]

Originally Posted by Larry Felton Johnson

I've made the analogy in the past that Midtown is our Manhattan, the eastside is our Brooklyn, and the westside is our Bronx. This project could extend "Manhattan" into the true historic center of our city.

Midtown is no Manhattan. One of the first things associated with Manhattan is high end fashion retail. (Gucci, Dior, LV, Hermes, etc.) There is nothing close to that here in Midtown. The eastside of Atlanta doesn't remind me of anything in Brooklyn. I wish you could elaborate and shed some knowlege so I could agree with you.

[smArTaLlone]

Awesome!

I've always wondered why Cooper Carry hasn't done more work locally.

[micropundit]

Originally Posted by Terminus

The Downtown Development Review Committee reviewed the first phase of Post Allen Plaza for the block bounded by West Peachtree Place, COP Drive, Simpson and Williams Street on Friday. I must confess that I was quite impressed - so, THERE, to those who say I'm always negative

The project is on a very tight site, but fortunately they hired a quality architecture firm - Cooper Carry (the same firm that did The Aramore, the first phase of Lindbergh City Center, and 905 Juniper) - that understands urbanism. As such, the plan relates well to the street on all block faces with first floor retail (that even steps down the hill), doors, attractive loading docks, a quality streetscape and new on-street parking.

The program includes a 202 room hotel, 175 condos, 350+/- apartments and 30,000 sf of retail and around 900 parking spaces (including public spaces).

The building is a tower on a podium typology. It includes a six floor, traditionally designed base for the 1/3 of the block facing Williams Street. the base of the remaining 2/3 of the block is a traditional limestone and precast "stone" base of 9 floors. On top of the base is an "L" shaped tower that sets back slightly from the base (other than a narrow sliver on Simpson). The long side of the "L" is parallel to Simpson Street. The tower is designed to look like two towers. The long leg of the "L" is a glass and precast "stone" tower rising 42 floors (450 feet +/-) above COP Drive, while the lower 19 (?) floor short leg is all glass. It is truly elegant; traditional yet with a contemporary flair.

The condos occupy the top floors of the long leg of the "L." Below them is the hotel. The short leg of the "L" is the apartment tower.

The best thing about this project is that, unlike every Novare project, the podium is NOT parking, so there are actually living units or hotel rooms facing the street on the base along COP Drive, Williams Street, Simpson Street and half of West Peachtree. The parking is underground and internal to the block, other than a small portion along West Peachtree Place. On said facade, the garage facade is no different from the rest of the building.

They plan to break ground in April on this block, and will be coming in soon for approval of more housing and retail on the block to the east. They also are developing plans for the other half of the Museum Tower block, as well as several other area blocks (as previously noted).

On a final note, I have heard that Centennial Park East (Integrals planned project on COP Drive and Ivan Allen Blvd) is dead and that the site is going on the market as another mixed-use site.

Caleb, thanks for a timely and comprehensive report. Please keep us informed on this exciting project as it moves toward being one of the premier devlopments in the country.

[Teshadoh]

Originally Posted by scania

Midtown is no Manhattan. One of the first things associated with Manhattan is high end fashion retail. (Gucci, Dior, LV, Hermes, etc.) There is nothing close to that here in Midtown. The eastside of Atlanta doesn't remind me of anything in Brooklyn. I wish you could elaborate and shed some knowlege so I could agree with you.

... it's an analogy, it isn't intended to be taken literally. You hopefully had figured that out, but nothing has to 'remind' anyone of anything specifically. As in, Southpark is Charlotte's Buckhead, Birmingham is the south's Pittsburgh (or Detroit), or based on my realtor's opinion my house is Grant Park's Brooklyn Bridge.

[Larry Felton Johnson]

Originally Posted by scania

Midtown is no Manhattan. One of the first things associated with Manhattan is high end fashion retail. (Gucci, Dior, LV, Hermes, etc.) There is nothing close to that here in Midtown. The eastside of Atlanta doesn't remind me of anything in Brooklyn. I wish you could elaborate and shed some knowlege so I could agree with you.

In terms of neighborhood architectural typology there's very little relationship between the eastside and Brooklyn (unless one counts Glenwood Park. If my aging memory isn't failing me Charles Brewer stated that Brooklyn Heights was one of his inspirations for the project). In terms of function within the city it's very similar. The eastside is a diverse affordable area mostly composed of residential with neighborhood commercial interspersed.

As for Midtown/Manhattan I've never considered high end fashion retail as the defining attribute of Manhattan (although the only place I've ever lived in NYC is Brooklyn, so perhaps Manhattan really is end-to-end Gucci, and I just happened to get off the subway in unrepresentative places). The things which triggered my analogy are dense residential in close proximity to very intense professional/commercial activity.

That being said, New York is New York, and Atlanta is Atlanta, and any analogy is bound to be weak.

[kardon]

Originally Posted by scania

Midtown is no Manhattan. One of the first things associated with Manhattan is high end fashion retail. (Gucci, Dior, LV, Hermes, etc.) There is nothing close to that here in Midtown. The eastside of Atlanta doesn't remind me of anything in Brooklyn. I wish you could elaborate and shed some knowlege so I could agree with you.

I got a feeling that even if he shed more knowledge..you'd still have that smart ass comment...

[scania]

Originally Posted by kardon

I got a feeling that even if he shed more knowledge..you'd still have that smart ass comment...

No, not at all. I feel like there is some dense residential in Midtown because of a few high rises that were built. On the other hand, it is still more dense in Downtown Atlanta, than Midtown. I say this because of one of his points he just gave when comparing.(residential/office)

[AubieTurtle]

Originally Posted by Terminus

The Downtown Development Review Committee reviewed the first phase of Post Allen Plaza for the block bounded by West Peachtree Place, COP Drive, Simpson and Williams Street on Friday. I must confess that I was quite impressed - so, THERE, to those who say I'm always negative

...

A few questions:
Will the short end of the L run next to COP Drive or Williams?
Is the top of the podium going to be a pool/recreation deck?
Is the underground parking still underground relative to COP Drive or just relative to Williams?
Does the development have a name?

Since you didn't mention anything about the old Library Lamps building, I'm assuming that they finally came to terms with Mr. Cranky Pants.

Overall I'm pretty happy with what I've read. The site is pretty challenging and I've had quite a few ideas of my own of how to deal with those challenges. Nobody wanted to see loading docks on West Peachtree Place but realistically they have to go somewhere. The difficult part is that there are very few examples of decently done loading/parking entrances in Atlanta so the gut reaction to hearing that you're going to have one outside your front door is negative. I know the loading dock/trash area of my building leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm surprised they found a solution to the parking issue. The block isn't very wide so by the time you wrap a living space or retail space around the perimeter of it, there isn't a whole lot of space left for parking. I did notice that you mentioned that it wouldn't be a complete wrap on West Peachtree Place but that's understandable since unless the cars are going to float in through the top of the building, there has to be a driveway somewhere. I have been disappointed by the experience that the Novare parking podiums create so it's good to see that's being avoided here.

Centennial Park East has been a thorn in my side for quite a while. For the longest time Integral kept saying "next quarter... trust us, next quarter" and of course the next quarter would come along and nothing would have happened. They did recently repair a lot of the fence around the property but they leave the gate wide open all the time so I don't know what that's going to help.

I heard rumors in the past few months that it was being sold to another developer who was going to put a couple of tall office towers on the site. I hope that's not the case for two reasons. The first is that there needs to be a step down in building heights the closer one gets to the Centennial Place neighborhood. Palmer House looks really dumb sticking up in the middle of the neighborhood (though I realize why it's there and that it predates Centennial Place by several decades) and a large tower would dwarf the pre-school next door. I also think that the neighborhood needs more evening use.

The World of Coca-Cola and the aquarium alone provide for a huge daytime population increase (relatively speaking in terms of neighborhood population) and that needs to be balanced by evening use. It is my hope (though probably nieve) that those huge parking structures that have been built by the aquarium and WOC can be put to use in the evening. Atlanta wastes so much space on automobile parking that is made even worse by the fact that most of it sits empty more than half the day. Post Biltmore seems to be one of the few places that balances parking between daytime office use and night time residential use.

Whenever the rest of the WOC property is developed, it really needs to be either residential or nighttime entertainment/retail such as a movie theatre, bowling alley, or nightclub (though I personally don't want to live across the street from a large bar). One of my biggest complaints about the WOC site being the original suggested NASCAR site was that the last thing we needed as another daytime only use rammed into that space.

It does sound like the new development will block the last of my view of Centennial Olympic Park (WOC is already blocking about a quarter of the view). Maybe I can contact Mary Norwood so she can have the plans cancelled and my view of the park will remain, along the with lovely view of the vacant lot and crumbling parking lot. Oh, it's such a lovely view!

[Terminus]

Originally Posted by AubieTurtle

A few questions:
Will the short end of the L run next to COP Drive or Williams?
Is the top of the podium going to be a pool/recreation deck?
Is the underground parking still underground relative to COP Drive or just relative to Williams?
Does the development have a name?

The short end of the "L" is actually touches the street mid-block on Simpson Street, with the long end running east-west towards COP Drive.

There will be rooftop gardens and pools on top of the podium.

I believe the parking will start about one floor underground relative to COP Drive. On Simpson and Williams part of the sidewalk will actually have parking below, but you'll never know from the street.

I think the name is "Post Allen Plaza."

[martarider]

Found some goodies...

[mayhem]

Originally Posted by AubieTurtle

The first is that there needs to be a step down in building heights the closer one gets to the Centennial Place neighborhood. Palmer House looks really dumb sticking up in the middle of the neighborhood (though I realize why it's there and that it predates Centennial Place by several decades) and a large tower would dwarf the pre-school next door. I also think that the neighborhood needs more evening use.

I could not disagree more. Centennial Place needs to be completely torn down. There shouldn't be a place for suburban gated apartments in the middle of the city. Also, things should not be built to fit those aparments scale. We've got the propsed Luckie St tower which will be 500 Ft, The Coke complex, The Roosevelt House, and the GSU villages in the area. I don't know the logistics of rezoning section 8 land but something REALLY needs to take the place of all the wasted space used up by those apartments. A one story single use building [the preschool] shouldn't be catered to. Something like that can be incorporated into a new mixed use development. I agree 100% with more evening use, but it seems like no one really wants to take the reigns in that industry anywhere in the city. We could really use about 10 more late night eateries. Your thoughts?

[mayhem]

Nice find, Dave! Is arcade an architectural term?

[Teshadoh]

Originally Posted by mayhem

I could not disagree more. Centennial Place needs to be completely torn down. There shouldn't be a place for suburban gated apartments in the middle of the city. Also, things should not be built to fit those aparments scale. We've got the propsed Luckie St tower which will be 500 Ft, The Coke complex, The Roosevelt House, and the GSU villages in the area. I don't know the logistics of rezoning section 8 land but something REALLY needs to take the place of all the wasted space used up by those apartments. A one story single use building [the preschool] shouldn't be catered to. Something like that can be incorporated into a new mixed use development. I agree 100% with more evening use, but it seems like no one really wants to take the reigns in that industry anywhere in the city. We could really use about 10 more late night eateries. Your thoughts?

I agree with you, but I do remember how Centennial Place was considered a godsend 10 years ago.