City to purchase land adjacent to four acres

Avondale Estates’ Downtown Development Authority announced Tuesday it’s reached an agreement to buy land adjacent to four acres it already owns, which can get combined in a potential future development. The new property includes two popular businesses on North Avondale Road, Finders Keepers and Edwin Jarvis, with the DDA assuming both leases once the purchase is complete.

More significantly, however, the purchase includes the parking lot behind the two businesses.

The DDA is currently figuring out how to develop those four acres, currently called the “Town Green.” The city appears unanimously committed to an overall design drawn up by architect and Avondale resident Sheri Locke. Her configuration includes two retail/restaurant buildings fronting North Avondale, where currently the Art Lot and the former Credit Union building stand.

It also includes a roughly 2.5acre park in the middle, bisected by Franklin Street, which gets converted into a pedestrian-only path.

But Locke’s design shows minimum parking, part of which gets alleviated by this current purchase. DDA Vice Chair Sam Collier said Tuesday that he isn’t sure how many parking spaces are included.

He added that specific design plans for both the park and the buildings’ development should “begin soon” and that the new purchase — which comes to less than an acre — should get finalized in January.