coming soon to a midtown skyline near you
another step in the manhattan-ization of midtown, with the atlanta business chronicle reporting today that cousins properties will tear down the office building, drive-thru bank and parking structure located on the mid-town block bordered by peachtree, north ave, ponce and juniper streets. this is the wachovia building right there on one of the busiest corners at the south end of midtown.
The ajc has more details here, but the plans are to build a 30 story condo tower on the site followed by a mixed-use hotel-retail-condo thing. initial plans for the high-profile corner at peachtree and north are for a park, but there are ominous-sounding warnings of an office building there.
mixed feelings about this. i’m all for growth and people creating high value uses for property, as well as continuing to bring people inside the city. but, really midtown is starting to look like manhattan and i really don’t know how much of a good thing that is.
maybe that’s what people in midtown want, and those of us who get bothered by it can always move to east atlanta (as i did), where the tallest building is the martha brown methodist church. imposing, wonderful and old.
interestingly, there is a whole group of people who are concerned about preserving the wachovia building on the site. apparently the building (which i will admit to always thinking was a bit ugly) is a classic example of ‘modern movement’ architecture. go figure. the site has some interesting info on the history of the building.
Oddly, the AJC article claimed that Cousins owns the entire block, which was surely a surprise to those of us who are the owner-residents of the historical Ponce Condominium building!
Also, does the building in the rendering in the article _really_ fit into the neighborhood? I’m not sure what about it is supposed to reflect the Fox Theater, the Georgian Terrace or our own building.
That said, I’m in favor of replacing the ugly 615 building, and I’ll look forward to some additional retail or restaurants.
i’m betting you are going to get a moe’s…..
“i’m betting you are going to get a moe’s”
One can only dream of having more options for substandard burritos.
Awesome!! I pass Martha Brown on my way to the Starlight all the time and love how beautiful it is.
(BTW this post is severely OT)
Even though my mom works DT and I go in all the time and I’m all for keeping Atlanta looking great (Has anyone else seen the ugly apt/condo building near Atlantic Station with the weird ‘waves’ on all four corners?) I couldn’t tell you what the Wachovia building looked like, but I guess that evenutally they’ll end up duking it out in the media, committies, and (maybe) court.