Fresh Loaf

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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(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Proponents of the Brain Train, including state legislators, college students, local officials and environmentalists, gathered in the cold shadow of the Gold Dome Thursday to urge legislators to pass funding that would help make the long-running idea a reality.

Bundled up in jackets and fighting the morning cold, supporters held posters and rallied for the proposed route of the Brain Train stretching from Athens to Atlanta and south to Macon.

Emory Morsberger, chairman of Georgians for the Brain Train, said a new poll commissioned by the organization showed 72 percent of registered voters in Bibb, Clayton, Henry, Lamar, Monroe and Spalding counties supported the idea of a commuter train connecting Atlanta and Macon.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘Is the Brain Train going to happen?’” Morsberger said. “I say yes. When we started, everyone laughed at us. But now we’ve got the House, the Senate, the DOT board. It works cost-wise, it works for the environment and it helps congestion. The time to do this is now.”

Allen Marshall of Griffin held a poster board outlining the 33 public and private educational institutions the commuter rail line would connect. Schools, he said, would be just one of the benefactors should the Brain Train begin to roll.

Other poll results show:

• 74.2 percent believe commuter rail service in the Macon-Atlanta corridor will help create jobs

• 70.7 percent stated they regularly drive to work

• 85.7 percent believe congestion will get worse in the next 10 years

• 70.6 percent described “traffic congestion getting into Atlanta” as a “big problem,” more than 20 percentage points higher than education, job creation, too much development and local congestion

• 59.2 percent said they would be either very likely or somewhat likely to use commuter rail service if available in the corridor

• 56.4 percent said the argument against commuter rail service that people just won’t use it is NOT PERSUASIVE

Michael Robison, CEO of Lanier Parking, said that of the 13 largest metropolitan regions in the nation, only three are without a commuter rail line. Houston’s one of those, he said, but the city has plans for a train. Detroit, the foreclosure capital of the country, is actually losing people. Atlanta’s the odd one out.

“We’re way behind the rest of the country in doing this,” Morsberger said. “The time is now.”

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Note: Paul Snyder of A. Brown-Olmstead Associates contacted me and clarified some details of the Brain Train. Those notes appear below in bold. 

Tad Leithead remembers his days growing up in Greenwich, Conn., a place where his father could leave the house, hop on a train to New York City, and then simply hoof it a couple of blocks to work. Atlanta has the same situation with workers flocking to its city center — except our metropolis doesn’t have a train, he says.

Leithead, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s chairman of the Transportation and Air Quality Committee, sat on a panel last night at the Commerce Club downtown, fielding questions and hobnobbing with local notables on the topic of the Brain Train, a commuter rail line slated to run from Athens to Atlanta — and eventually to Macon — and hoped to ease the trips for many residents who for so long have lived so far out and driven too damn much. The train would run on existing tracks owned by freight company CSX. The line between Atlanta and Macon would run on Norfolk/Southern right-of-way.

Gwinnett-based developer Emory Morsberger — who throughout the evening mingled and buzzed through the crowd of public officials, media, business types and heavy hitters — told Georgia Trend in a March article that he got the idea for a commuter rail line from arriving late to his daughter’s birthday party and listening to gridlock-addled Little League parents. The idea attracted the attention of universities, cities and businesses, and is now being touted as an added boost to already booming areas and a saving grace for the congested Clifton Corridor, home to Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control and other activity centers devoid of significant transportation options except the automobile.

The panel, which included Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Ed Campbell of SYSTRA Consulting Inc., Carl Rhodenizer of the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority, Michael Robison of the Metro Chamber and former DOT Commissioner Wayne Shackelford, expressed support for the project.

The underlying question in every issue tackling government is money, and panel members were undecided on where exactly they’re going to get the $383 million construction cost for the Athens-to-Atlanta line.

The federal government, according to press materials provided by the Brain Train group, is prepared to kick in 80 percent of the start-up costs. Federal money has not yet been assigned or identified — the 80 percent is a typical amount based on a state 20 percent match. The multimodal passenger terminal downtown — a bus and train hub proposed for downtown’s “gulch” near the CNN Center and Georgia Dome — has current federal and state funding and is estimated to cost $330.8 million overall. The downtown station is expected to be a huge draw for public-private initiatives, and the crowd suggested ideas such as TADs and regional sales taxes to build the project.

So what’s the holdup?
(more…)

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