Found this in the AJC online last night. Haven't seen it posted anywhere. Wanted to make sure that ATL boosters, and others, saw it. Enjoy!
Hubs of activity at MARTA stations
Lively urban sites to ring train stations
By PAUL DONSKY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/02/06
Step off a MARTA train at the East Lake station and there's not much to see or do.
The station, five miles east of downtown Atlanta, is surrounded by a sea of asphalt. Walkways funnel riders to one of two sprawling parking lots.
Paul Donsky/AJC
(ENLARGE)
A cluster of high-rise office buildings and hotels are going up on private property next to the Civic Center MARTA station on the northern edge of downtown.
Ben Gray/AJC
(ENLARGE)
Office buildings, apartments, shops and restaurants surround the Lindbergh MARTA station. The development, and the riders and shoppers it has attracted, serve as an example for the projects planned for the areas around several other MARTA stations.
In contrast, the Lindbergh station in Buckhead sits amid a mini-city, with three office towers, an apartment complex, shops, restaurants and, opening next week, an upscale nightclub.
For now, East Lake is the more typical station. But plans are in the works to transform East Lake and a number of similarly sleepy stations into vibrant centers.
Not only does the development fulfill a longtime promise to invigorate areas near the stations and bring more riders, but it's good for MARTA's balance sheet: Nearby businesses generates sales tax, a main source of the agency's revenue, and much activity is on MARTA-owned land.
MARTA parking lots at the Avondale, Chamblee and Lakewood-Fort McPherson stations are set to be replaced by apartments, condos and retail. A cluster of high-rise office buildings and hotels are rising on private property next to the Civic Center station on the north end of downtown.
In the coming months, MARTA plans to sell land for projects at the Brookhaven, East Lake, Kensington and North Springs stations.
"I'd like to see significant development around all of our stations," said Darryl Connelly, MARTA's director of transit-oriented development. "We're trying to build more developments to get more people to live, work and play around transit."
Last year, the agency's leases and sales brought in $3.1 million — a figure expected to more than double by 2011.
By now, most of MARTA's 38 stations were supposed to have matured into pedestrian-friendly hubs of activity, with dense pockets of housing, offices and retail. Nearly three decades after the rail system opened, however, only a handful of stations, mostly downtown and in Midtown, even come close to providing a big-city transit experience.
MARTA has been criticized for taking so long to develop its stations. That wasn't the plan, said Leon Eplan, a transportation consultant who helped design the rail system.
High-rise housing was envisioned at outlying stations, with office towers and other businesses at close-in stations, he said. The city zoning was even changed to accommodate the plan, he said.
"People would live in dense situations around a station and use MARTA to get to their jobs," Eplan said. "So we'd be able to eliminate the car — at least, one car" — from many households.
The problem, as Eplan sees it: MARTA's rail system came on line in the late 1970s, a time when the city was losing population to the suburbs. Jobs and businesses followed.
But urban living is hot again. Dilapidated areas have been reclaimed for high-end shops and housing. The city skyline is being redrawn with new condo towers.
And MARTA stations, long regarded as eyesores, are now being seen as opportunities. The change amazes Eplan.
"I thought it would never happen," he said. "But now, as we're coming back to the city, those parking lots are much more valuable. ... The areas around stations are going to be the hottest areas."
The rail station developments are being fueled by Atlanta residents who crave a more urban lifestyle.
Vincent Hughes Jr. and his fiancée have lived in a townhouse next to the Chamblee rail station since 2005. The MARTA tracks are visible from their front stoop.
"We have both lived in cities that are not car-based — she in Boston and me in Montreal — and we wanted to live near a transit station to have that option, to not have to take our car all the time," Hughes said.
By using mass transit, Hughes said, he feels a part of the fabric of the city.
"If you're always getting in your car, you're never talking to anyone," he said.
Hughes occasionally takes the train to meet his wife after work for dinner in Midtown, but he no longer takes MARTA to his job in the Perimeter Center area. The trip took 45 minutes by train, including a change at the Lindbergh station, compared with 20 minutes by car.
Even MARTA's Lindbergh City Center is taking off, seven years after the transit system plowed $120 million into turning vacant lots into the system's signature transit-oriented development project.
BellSouth built two office buildings on the site, but the rest of the 47-acre development at the Lindbergh station in Buckhead languished.
Now, the area bustles with construction workers building retail space and putting the finishing touches on a 362-unit apartment complex. Lunchtime crowds pack Chili's, Longhorn Steakhouse and Taco Mac restaurants.
To come: 350 condos, a deli, a hamburger joint, a hair salon and Lotus Lounge, a nightclub. Last week, plans were finalized to bring a vocational school, High Tech Institute, to the development in a new three-story building, with retail on the ground floor.
"With the intense desire to live intown and redevelop infill areas, this area finally got on the radar screen," said Trent Germano, executive vice president with Carter & Associates, the Lindbergh City Center's master developer.
MARTA has been widely criticized for investing so heavily in Lindbergh that it could take decades just to break even. The project will generate more than $1.1 million in lease income this year.
Richard McCrillis, MARTA's interim general manager, stressed that the transit system no longer invests in station development, preferring instead to lease or sell property. But he noted that the office towers at Lindbergh have attracted new riders, and the restaurants and stores will generate sales tax revenue.
"There's a good return on it," he said, describing Lindbergh as a catalyst "for all these other transit-oriented developments."
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Someone tell that congresswoman Savannah's looking for new residents.
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