Atlantic Station, the 138-acre new urban redevelopment

Atlantic Station, the 138-acre new urban redevelopment of a steel mill near downtown Atlanta, is moving forward very quickly. More than a thousand residents already live in condos and apartments in the development, according to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The first retail at the 12 million sq. ft. Atlantic Station, an IKEA home furnishings store, is scheduled to open in June. More than 30 retailers, including a Dillard’s department store and other national retailers, are scheduled to open in the fall. A Publix supermarket and Regal Theatre multiplex are also slated to open in the project. In May, the Lane Company broke ground on 578 apartments and condominiums in Atlantic Station. Plus, the project’s first office building, a 400,000 sq. ft. tower, began construction in April. The project is currently a huge construction site, and it is difficult to judge from photos how successful the urban design will be. Larry Felton Johnson, an Atlanta new urbanist and Internet blogger, is disappointed in the lack of consideration for pedestrians in the design of the big box IKEA. “There is a sidewalk in front of the building, but it’s currently separated from the front entrance by both a dropoff on the edge of the parking area, and the front surface parking lot itself,” he says. Jacoby Development has been working on the project, which required environmental remediation, for nine years. Atlantic Station benefited from a special tax district that allowed $76 million in bonds to be sold for infrastructure. The bonds will be paid back by property taxes collected from the project.