Fresh Loaf

So you’d like there to be more public transit in Atlanta, want to see more smart-growth development, but you still don’t know exactly what the Beltline is all about. The Beltline Partnership, the 22-mile project’s fundraising arm, operates twice-a-week tours of the proposed loop of transit, trails, parks and development, so that’s one way.

Another way is to help clean the project up. Last year, volunteers cleaned up the Beltline’s southwest portion. On Nov. 8, Keep Atlanta Beautiful and other partners plan to do the same in the northeast quadrant.

Here are the details:

Last week, TruGreen LandCare, lawn and landscape professionals, donated their time and expertise to prepare the area for volunteers by accomplishing some of the heavy lifting.

On Saturday November 8, Atlanta BeltLine Inc., Ponce Park, the Historic Fourth Ward Park Conservancy, City of Atlanta, Park Pride, Trees Atlanta, Atlanta Community ToolBank and PATH are orchestrating the northeast corridor BeltLine clean-up. This is necessary to achieve the clean-up’s goal of taking a first step in creating a useable connection between Piedmont Park and Freedom Park. See images below.

Volunteers will pick up litter and remove kudzu from trees along the 1.5 mile stretch. You can register as a volunteer for the clean-up at www.keepatlantabeautiful.org.

(Photo courtesy of TruGreen LandCare)

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This photo, taken yesterday, makes it look as if all is peachy keen over at Atlanta Police headquarters. Nope, no woeful under-staffing here. Officer morale is at an all-time high!

Actually, the mood at City Hall East more closely resembles this.

Note to developer Emory Morsberger, City Hall East’s soon-to-be owner: If you were to permanently install a rainbow over the 1920s, former Sears, Roebuck & Co. distribution center, you could easily charge 20 percent more for the 1,100 lofts that will replace the dismal police cubicles. Just a thought.

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Dreaming of a mixed-use life in Ponce Park, the proposed mega development in the massive City Hall East building between North Avenue and Ponce de Leon Road? You might have to cool your jets until June of next year.

The Atlanta City Council on Monday approved extending the building’s sale date to June 15, 2009 because the city has not completed its new 911 call center near the property. A proposed lake to be built at the new North Avenue Park also needs time to be completed before the land can be transferred.

A spokesperson for Ponce Park LLC, the team led by Gwinnett County developer Emory Morsberger that is planning the project, said the group has to wait until the city has moved from the building before they can begin work. The transition was originally planned for August of this year. Contrary to what would be a natural assumption, the spokesperson said, it was not a delay because of the real-estate market’s current woes.

The building, which has been used by the city as a municipal annex since it purchased the dilapidated beast in the early 1990s for $12 million, will be handed over to Morsberger’s firm for $27 million. The project is zoned for 182,610 square feet of retail space, 154,380 square feet of office space, and 1,167 residential units. Morsberger has grand plans for the project, which would include space for nonprofits, the arts and a research institute. Morsberger spoke with CL’s John Sugg about his vision, which you can read here. Ponce Park would also boast a stop along the Beltline’s planned transit component, which at that project’s current pace, would most likely be operational in 2483.

Check out Ponce Park here. If you’re a history buff, the site has a great visual time line of the history of the area that was once a popular spring and is now a multi-use trail for prostitutes, hipsters and people waiting for the MARTA bus.

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