The Atlanta Journal-Constitution once again featured the downtown
revitialization plan Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh & Associates is working
on for Avondale Estates, a small city east of Atlanta, Georgia.
City opts for new "Main Street"
Avondale Estates approves $9 million plan for vibrant core
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Karen Hill - Staff
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Don't like the Main Street you've got? Then create a new one.
That's the approach Avondale Estates officials are taking in their
plan to transform the city's dusty commercial core into a vibrant
corridor full of people walking to restaurants, chic stores and small
parks.
The plan also suggests adding architecture styles other than the
Tudor Revival that is the city's signature.
While new buildings at the core of the new "Main Street" will
echo the Tudor look, the plan also recommends some development in
the "National Folk"--- or plain farmhouse --- style of
the area's earliest homes and, on the other end of the timeline,
some that is "industrial chic."
Avondale Estates was built in the 1920s as an idealized English
village. But some of its oldest homes, closest to downtown, date
from before then, when the small Ingleside community grew along the
railroad track.
The city's mayor and Board of Commissioners on Oct. 25 approved,
by a 3-2 vote, the approximately $9 million plan, based on work from
the consulting firm Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh and Associates and a series
of meetings with residents.
Financing hasn't been nailed down, but much of that money could
come from grants, bonds and a recently approved incremental tax on
downtown businesses, city officials say.
The plan will take 20 to 25 years to complete, City Manager Warren
Hutmacher said.
Mayor Jerry McCumber said the plan acknowledged the inevitable change
that was coming to the small town, one of the first planned communities
in the nation and situated adjacent to gentrifying Decatur.
"It's exciting because we're going to control the change," McCumber
said. "The scary thing is we are making changes to the city."
The plan centers on moving pedestrians, new stores and restaurants,
and a series of small parks to Franklin Street, a street that runs
parallel to, but one block north of, the current main drag, North
Avondale Road.
North Avondale Road, also a state and federal highway, is a busy
commuter route between downtown Atlanta and its eastern suburbs.
Franklin Street is a small, quiet, crooked street lined with businesses
that include car repair shops, construction companies, light industries
and even an Italian bakery.
Some of those business owners fear they will be forced out as the
plan unfolds, either by rising rents or, if they own their property,
by zoning changes and eminent domain seizures.
"I may not be clean and fancy enough for what they want to
do here," said Raymond Cannon, owner of Ed's Auto Service,
which has anchored Franklin Street for 49 years.
"It's probably a good thing for Avondale Estates, but selfishly,
it means I'll probably have to move," said Ann Finley, an artist
who rents space on Franklin Street to paint and craft metal sculptures. "It's
getting harder and harder to find light industrial space intown
where I'm safe, since I work a lot at night."
The hub of activity on the renovated, straightened and lengthened
Franklin Street will be directly behind what is now downtown's signature,
the two-block Tudor Village. Those buildings will be preserved. Newer
buildings closest to the Tudor Village will echo that theme, Hutmacher
said, but those farther out will have more design leeway.
The plan says downtown's Tudor-style facades --- brown brick topped
with cream plaster and dark half-timbers --- are "too dark and
oppressive" for commercial use, overshadowing the identity
of individual stores.
The new "Main Street" will be three blocks long, anchored
on one end by a three-quarter-acre park and on the other end
by a smaller plaza.
In between, planners envision a series of new two-story buildings
with storefronts and restaurants on the bottom and housing on top.
The buildings will front wide sidewalks interspersed with greenery.
In total, the plan calls for the addition of 250 housing units,
75,000 square feet of office space, 73,000 square feet of retail
and restaurant space, and almost 2 acres of parks.
The plan calls for the development of some surrounding streets into
primarily residential neighborhoods, with an assisted-living facility
for the elderly on one street.
Passage of the plan already has increased the number of developers
calling to inquire about possibilities downtown, Hutmacher said.
"Developers love a master plan. They want to know you've thought
out what's going in next to them. They don't want it to go downhill,
because they've made an investment in your community," Hutmacher
said.
At least as important, he said, is that the planning process made
residents decide what they want their town to be.
"I feel like it's forced the community to decide what their
vision is," he said. "While we may [still] have discussions
on the details, we know in general what we want.
