Fresh Loaf

Atlanta mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes will sit down on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at All Saints Episcopal Church on West Peachtree Street to give their views on the Beltline, the $2.8 billion 22-mile loop of parks, trails and (hopefully) transit.

The Beltline, which has made considerable traction in the last year, also faces difficult hurdles. Its main funding source, a tax allocation district, relies on increased development along the loop. As we all know, there’s not a whole lot of that going on at the moment. There are also neighborhood-level debates over density and concerns about equitable funding and transparency. The next mayor will sit on the Beltline board and have to weigh in on those discussions.

The forum, which is sponsored by the Atlanta Preservation Center, BeltLine Network, Citizens for Progressive Transit, Park Pride and PEDS, will be moderated by former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard. Woolard, who’s now with humanitarian organization CARE, was the public-works project’s biggest cheerleader while at City Hall.

The two-hour event begins at 6 p.m. For directions to All Saints Episcopal Church, go here.

(Courtesy Atlanta Beltline Inc.)

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UPDATE: This article has been expanded with additional reporting.

Little has changed about the Clermont Hotel — or its time-capsule strip club — since Atlanta real estate mogul Jeff Notrica took over the Ponce de Leon Avenue landmark six years ago.

Just as he promised when he bought the 85-year-old building, Notrica resisted the typical developer’s temptation to chop it up into condos or turn it into modern apartments. Downstairs, the storied Clermont Lounge was left untouched and remains its gloriously seedy self.

But it may be that the hands-off approach Notrica, 44, has taken with the Clermont and many of his other properties — a land baron’s acquisitiveness tempered by a collector’s appreciation for each new bauble — has simultaneously helped bring his intown real estate empire crashing down.

Unless a deal is struck between Notrica’s Inman Park Properties and New York-based lender Fairway Capital — or unless a deep-pocketed buyer steps forward — the Clermont Hotel and its lounge will be auctioned off on the courthouse steps July 2.

If that happens, it will be only the latest, if largest, in a long series of foreclosures suffered by Inman Park Properties over the past three months. The company’s apparent meltdown has involved some of the most recognizable and beloved buildings in East Atlanta, Little Five Points, Poncey-Highland and Midtown — causing many residents of those same neighborhoods to cheer the company’s downfall.

(more…)

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Architecture society DOCOMOMO’s Georgia chapter and the Young Architects Forum of AIA Atlanta will host a presentation and self-guided tour of downtown Atlanta’s central library on March 11 at 6:30 p.m.

Atlanta's central library

The library is the final work of famed Modernist architect Marcel Breuer and has been at the center of a heated preservation effort after Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts said he wanted to sell the building or move the library’s collection to a new facility near Centennial Olympic Park.

For more information about the event, part of the Atlanta Preservation Center’s Phoenix Files series which showcases the city’s “living landmarks,” visit the site. (The series, which includes tours of The Wren’s Nest and the Olmstead Liner Parks, is worth a look.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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