13 Comments on This photo shows modern Atlanta’s development

Jordan on Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 4:14 pm


I agree that parking lots are not exactly appealing, but the dilemma is that the land’s most profitable use, at the time, is a parking lot. The parking lot fees pay for the cost of the land and currently either the land isn’t worth selling or developing. Until the owner of the land decides to sell to a developer (or the owner is a developer whose waiting for the market to rebound to develop the land) then it’ll remain a parking lot.

This isn’t just an Atlanta thing either. The good thing is more people are moving to Atlanta and for the first time in a long time the city center is gaining population, not losing it. With more density comes more urban infill and the parking lots will disappear, but it just takes time.

Jeanne Bonner on Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 4:40 pm


You make some good points, Jordan, and it’s what I’ve heard from parking experts here.

I’m not an expert about this, by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s hard to imagine a parking lot on the equivalent of Peachtree Street in New York or Boston. There are very few large surface lots in the heart of New York, for example (parking garages, yes). Because the land is simply much more valuable. That makes me think Atlanta has a big problem. I see the same thing around town in terms of land with awesome views where there’s an empty lot or the land is grossly underutilized.

As you say, more people are moving into the city so I just need to sit tight!

Sam S-M on Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 7:17 pm


I’ve heard that part of the profitability of parking lots (particularly the surface lots) is they have special tax rules that make it very easy to squat on the land, do nothing to develop it, and wait for a more ambitious investor to come along and actually add value to the neighborhood.

Ideally you want investors to be motivated to improve the property themselves, my understanding is that the status quo tax arrangement doesn’t encourage that.

Dave on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 1:52 am


In the last 3 years that I’ve lived downtown, I’ve seen at least half a dozen parking lots being replaced with new buildings. Change doesn’t come overnight and expecting Atlanta to be like New York is just silly.

The city has been growing tremendously over the past decade, it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country thanks to Georgia State University, the 1996 Olympics, and Hartsfield Jackson Airport. As more fortune 500 companies headquarter in Atlanta, the bigger the city is going to become.

There’s a lot worse things these lots could be instead of parking lots. Atlanta is moving forward, just give it the time it needs to develop.

Dave on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 2:01 am


I just wanted to add one more thing. The parking lot this picture was taken in is a brand new parking lot that was built along with the Children’s Health Care building directly ahead. This building opened just this year and that parking is for staff and patient parking.

Metropolitan Atlanta is heavily car dependent unlike New York which many don’t even own cars. When you have people that have to commute to the city you must have the parking to accommodate them. You may think parking is ugly, but it’s necessary for the city of Atlanta with the situation it has with commuters today.

Jeanne Bonner on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 11:39 am


Fair criticism but I’m a native of the suburbs of New York so New York is the city I know best. I know in stunning detail (!!!!) how different it is from Atlanta. Other cities I know well — cities in Italy, for example — would make for even worse comparisons.

It’s funny how New York is such a trigger! People in Atlanta just hate the comparison. And I can understand that; New York started developing in the early 1600s so it has had quite a jump on Atlanta in terms of urban development, and there are also the obvious geographic differences that have concentrated development in New York, etc.

My thought is only that we might be able to learn something from New York. Hard to imagine but it also went through a period of decline and vacancies and surface lots and second-rate development.

But let’s take another example. In Greenville, S.C., Main Street is, no surprise, the main drag. Most of the key restaurants, shops and attractions are along Main Street. And there are few (if any) surface parking lots. I presume that’s because land on Main Street is valuable, it’s desired. Instead, there are a fair number of parking garages, though again not usually facing Main Street. If someone has a better example, chime in.

As for the parking lot in the picture, I should say that it’s by no means the worst example.

But what’s the difference whether it’s new or old, or who it’s for? I presume a lot of the surface parking lots in Atlanta serve important constituencies. There’s a large surface lot next to the MLK MARTA station — it’s for Grady employees. I can completely understand why it’s there.

But it doesn’t make it pretty! And it doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to deal with the parking issue. Or that it would be nice if the highest and best use were something different.

One Atlanta parking official I’ve talked to says he’d like to see Atlanta move toward streetcars and at the ends of the streetcar lines would be parking lots where people leave their cars and come into the city and spend the day or the afternoon all on foot or mass transit.

By the way, some old-school New Yorkers in places like Brooklyn have cars and they park them on the street! That’s usually where I park as well when I need to take my car downtown/midtown.

Jordan on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 11:42 am


@ Jeanne Bonner

You can’t really compare Atlanta to Boston or New York. Both of those cities are much older than Atlanta, had densely filled city centers before the advent of the car, and have geographical features impeding their growth outward. Atlanta hasn’t and doesn’t have those things. Thus you got the urban sprawl and the lack of density. As I mentioned, Atlanta is continually getting denser as more people move into the city.

As you mentioned NYC and Boston have parking garages downtown, but do you know how expensive it is to build a parking garage? It’s very expensive to build up as oppose to out, especially with parking lots. In order for it to be profitable (and worth while) you’d have to charge very high rates. Why would someone pay a high rate just to park in a parking deck? They wouldn’t, especially with the availability of much cheaper parking. So until the demand goes up you’re going to see surface lots.

Please understand that Atlanta (and many cities in the south such as Charlotte) are much younger cities than NYC and are going through their progression.

Jeanne Bonner on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 11:52 am


Fair enough.

I think maybe I’ve failed to clearly articulate the main point I was trying to make!

It is this: oh what a great day it will be when land on Peachtree and other main thoroughfares intown is so valuable that a surface lot is not the highest and best use!!!! I assume that’s not a point in dispute.

Sorry that that was not clearer. As someone who grew up visiting New York a ton a ton a ton and still visits New York a ton a ton a ton, I really really really know the difference between the two cities!!!!! And I love my front porch, which would be impossible to have in New York.

I guess my other point was, why are we not at that point where, again, a surface lot is not the highest return on investment.

I’m aware of the recession and I know it’s a key factor in the answer to my question; but some development continues (for example, a
300-unit apartment building is being built in Glenwood Park. Another housing complex is being built across from the MLK MARTA station).

One other thing. The parking folks I talk to say parking garages are at capacity downtown/midtown and I think there are now some restrictions in terms of building surface lots.

So yeah yeah we’re not like New York but how do we solve this problem going forward?

Jordan on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 12:34 pm


@ Jeanne Bonner

You don’t solve this problem, unfortunately.

The region solves this problem by having people continue to move downtown and for density to increase, which has been occurring dramatically. You can’t even compare Atlanta in 1996 from 2010 – the change is incredible. Overtime you’ll see more garages develop, you’ll see surface lots disappear as they’re replaced by infill development.

To answer some of your other questions…

While some development is occurring it’s most likely because those developers had already gotten financing prior to the recession. It’s near impossible for developers to get financing for commercial and residential projects when you have office buildings at 30% or less capacity and places like the W near Ernst & Young that sold (I believe) 1 unit in the entire residential portion of the building. The demand is simply not there to warrant new construction at this moment.

It’s going to take Atlanta a long time to recover from the recession and fill up the unused space, but after that you’ll see more development occurring. In between you’ll probably see a lot of the smaller surface lots disappear as small-scale development takes place.

The things to look forward to are the transition of GSU from a commuter school to a traditional four year university, the continued development of museum attractions (http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2010/12/03/behold-downtowns-future-college-football-of-fame), and the investment in public attractions by generous donors (http://www.ajc.com/business/sightseeing-ferris-wheel-for-735006.html).

With GSU building dorms and bringing students into the heart of downtown Atlanta supporting industries catering to the students will follow, spurring development and perhaps eating some of those surface lots you seem to despise. The College Football Hall of Fame is actually going to be built on a surface lot, so there’s something to look forward to.

Dave on Sat, 4th Dec 2010 7:02 pm


The main reason we aren’t at that point is because how new of a city we are. NYC is about 400 years old right? Well, Atlanta was completely leveled during the Civil War. The city is barely 150 years old and didn’t start seeing escalated improvements until the Olympics of ’96.

Another reason has to do with how the city and state is run. Without the necessary funds and continuous cutbacks, the city will continue to struggle with keeping up on development.

SL-U on Sun, 5th Dec 2010 2:29 pm


Its interesting that Edgewood Shopping District was designed to have a continuous street-wall of retail with the parking mostly screened from the point of view of Moreland Avenue. Why? Was it the developer’s idea, input from neighbors that like the Lil 5 streetfronts down the avenue, or special zoning? Regardless, better design for parking is happening in Atlanta in spots.

Actually, the parking lot in the picture looks way better than most, maybe because its new, but it looks like they have some screening (fencing) and plantings. Cars and interesting urban places don’t work without major design considerations and you have to remember zoning codes typically require almost a 1:1 ratio between usable floor area and parking area – even though it seems my car takes up more space than my work cubicle.

Darin on Mon, 13th Dec 2010 2:39 pm


Argh! There was a discussion about parking lots in Atlanta and I missed it! Well, lateness be damned. I’m going to add a comment anyway because I gotta be me.

The issue of parking facilities near my downtown neighborhood (Fairlie-Poplar, baybaaaayh!) has become an oddly emotional one for me. I’ve got such big tie to downtown Atlanta and a lot of hope invested in seeing a complete urban neighborhood develop here — one that showcases the best of walkable, transit-connected urbanism to the rest of the city.

I’ve come to view the parking facilities as a real threat to the development of the neighborhood I want to see. Not just in their aesthetic unpleasantness or function (as Dave points out, they do serve a purpose to the residents of a car-dependent city), but because of what they represent.

To me, the massive amount of land space devoted to parking downtown is like a skin rash that signifies a greater disease. That disease is an illogical, hurtful separation of land uses that puts a crowd of entertainment/conference/office structures in one big zone with residential zones haphazardly spread across the landscape.

With so many businesses built around temporary visitors to the area (arena/stadium/concert patrons, conventioneers, office workers), it’s no wonder that there is this much parking concentrated here. This concept of putting these large event and entertainment spaces all together downtown is a product of 1970s ‘urban renewal’ thinking. The further we get from those ideas and the more diversity of uses we see in the urban core of the city, the better.

There are residents moving downtown, but not at the rate necessary to equalize the activity taking place with the car-bound temporary visitors. Maria Saporta published a good interview with Paul Kelman of Central Atlanta Progress earlier this year. Here’s a great quote:

—–
“And if he had a magic wand for downtown, what would he wish more?

“More people living down here,” Kelman answered. “If we had the opportunity to double or triple our residential population, that’s No. 1 on our list. That would do more to reinvigorate the city than anything else. We definitely are not finished building housing downtown. It will just take a little longer.””
—–

I absolutely agree with this. It’s a catch-22, though, since it’s very difficult to build an attractive residential space when so many days see sports fans or conventioneers filling the roads of the urban core with traffic and looking for parking spots in the myriad of parking facilities that serve them. It’s going to take a very focussed effort and some difficult choices to significantly increase the residential population here. I think it can be done.

BTW, here’s a page where you can see an image of the land space devoted to parking downtown:
http://atlurbanist.tumblr.com/post/1313137607/my-urban-island-is-not-an-island

Jeanne Bonner on Mon, 13th Dec 2010 4:29 pm


Never too late to comment, Darin, particularly since you know the issue better than most of us. I, for one, don’t live downtown (I can’t speak for the others who posted).

Before I forget, let me say that the map you link to is INCREDIBLE. Wow. Clearly there is a lot of parking downtown and the map doesn’t even show some of the lots I was thinking about in Midtown when I wrote the post.

You raise so many interesting points. On some level, I know downtown has a lot of entertainment venues, but I’ve never thought about it from the point of view of someone who lives near them.

I feel like my point may have been misinterpreted, I guess, because I made the faux pas of comparing Atlanta to New York. I know some of the other posters will disagree and all I can say is, I know who Peter Stuyvesant is! Who’s Atlanta’s equivalent of Peter Stuyvesant? There is none because Atlanta was not settled in the 1600s when Stuyvesant was in charge of the colony of New Amsterdam so I get it that the two cities are different, I get it, I get it.

But now, how about we try to improve Atlanta? Are we saying because we’re not like New York we can’t emulate anything that works there? Particularly in downtown it seems to me that we can, because in fact the area’s layout is similar to New York.

And since Darin has re-opened the discussion I will also add: I OWN A CAR.

And I like it! I like driving fast! I’m not against cars, particularly in a city like Atlanta. I like driving my car to the grocery store and buying everything I want — try that in New York!

Nothing is black and white. Nothing, except the fact that most parking lots were not designed to be beautiful, which is unfortunate because the city’s skyline is beautiful. So doesn’t that mean my original point stands?

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