The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Redevelopment project near Northlake Mall OK’D
Developer agrees to shrink number of apartments in plan.
A redevelopment project was approved for the Northlake Mall area after its developer agreed to shrink the project’s scope by nearly 100 apartments.
With a 5-2 vote, the Tucker City Council approved a special land use permit for a developer to readapt the Tucker Exchange office building and build three new mixed-use buildings. The project, which spans about 30 acres, will include 409 apartments in addition to office, coworking, retail and restaurant space.
The project proposed by AHS Residential received pushback from residents and city leaders when it was first pitched in February, leading to multiple design changes. The original design included 497 apartments, but the reduction wasn’t enough to win over some residents and city employees.
“I think it’s a very dense development for Tucker in all regards, and I think that we can definitely do better,” Tucker resident Andrew Greenberg said during Monday’s council meeting.
City staff recommended the council deny the permit, but the vote eventually passed with Mayor Frank Auman and Councilwoman Noelle Monferdini dissenting. Den Webb, the attorney representing the Florida-based AHS Residential, said the company is committed to making this a quality development and intends to make it AHS Residential’s new corporate headquarters.
“They want to be here, and I think they’ve demonstrated that not just in words but in deeds,” Webb said Monday.
The project site is 2059 Northlake Parkway, which is roughly a mile away from Northlake Mall. The Tucker Exchange office building that’s located on the property is currently only occupied by Bank of America. It leases about a fifth of the 250,000 square feet of existing office space, and Webb argued the city would be better served by other uses at that location.
“They’ve only got a couple of employees actually in the building, and Bank of America is out in a couple of months,” he said. “So that building is about to be completely empty.”
The redevelopment will include transforming the office building into 129 apartment units, while constructing three more buildings. The new buildings will vary from six to seven stories, and will include up to 280 apartments combined.
During Monday’s public comment, several residents worried the new buildings will be too tall for the area, but Webb argued the existing building will remain the tallest on the site.
“Every new building will be lower than what’s there now,” he said.
The developer agreed to set aside at least 15% of the units — 62 apartments — as workforce housing, meaning those residents will have to meet certain income requirements. Only people who make between 80% and 140% of the area median income will qualify to rent those units. Councilwoman Alexis Weaver said it’s a crucial part of the project.
“This is a great opportunity for middle-class workers to have access to entrepreneurial opportunities, because they have the same access to that live-work (lifestyle),” she said.
Webb said AHS Residential will invest $100 million into the project and also agreed to build two trail connections for Tucker’s ongoing multiuse trail network.
Some residents remained concerned that changing the location’s use would hurt Tucker’s office market, but Councilwoman Anne Lerner, who made the motions to approve the special land use permit, argued that empty offices won’t help Tucker.
“Yes, we need to keep our office (space),” Lerner said, “but we have a lot of office still left in Tucker, and I hope it begins to lease up.”
AMELIA ISLAND, FLA. — Long under consideration, a change in the football scheduling model appears to be in the works for the ACC.
The conference, which adopted a two-division format in 2005 when it expanded to 12 teams, is moving closer to replacing it. Conference athletic directors have been debating different models at the league’s spring meetings this week.
“We’re moving forward (with the conversation),” Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said Tuesday. “We’re closer to the end than the beginning on that, but we need to talk a little bit with our TV partners to see what they think, kind of run it through the car wash one more time.”
Radakovich, a former Georgia Tech and Clemson AD, said the proposal that has gained the most favor among athletic directors is one in which every team would have three opponents that it would play annually and then
play the other 10 on a rotating basis, five one year and the other five the next, for an eight-game league schedule.
That model would address perhaps the biggest complaint about the current two-division format — that teams play six of the seven teams in the opposite division twice every 12 years. It means that a player could be on a team for five seasons and not play every team in the conference. In the proposed 3-5-5 format, a team would play every other conference team home and away at least twice in a four-year span.
Said Radakovich of the model, “That really got a lot of thumbs
up around the room.”
Other options include similar models with one or two permanent opponents instead of three. Retaining the two-division format remains a possibility, too.
“I think it’s still under discussion,” Florida State AD Michael Alford said of the two-division format. “There’s pros and cons.”
Tech athletic director Todd Stansbury said that a committee assigned to the topic ran simulations with about 30 different scheduling models.
“It’s one of those things that some just don’t work automatically,” he said. “So wherever we end up, this thing has boiled down from pretty much every imaginable model.”
The league is considering options with the idea of putting one in place for the 2023 season. A final decision is not expected at this week’s meetings, which conclude Thursday.
“We just want to be deliberate about it, make sure that we’re doing everything right,” Radakovich said.
One of the next issues to tackle would be identifying the three permanent opponents. In Georgia Tech’s case, Clemson makes sense in that the Tigers are Tech’s closest geographical ACC opponent, have been the Jackets’ permanent cross-division partner since the league went to two divisions and have a long history. Tech and Clemson have played 87 times in a series that began in 1898.
Florida State, which is the second-closest opponent geographically after Clemson, has a history of highly entertaining games in its series with the Jackets. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech also have had a series of memorable games when both were at the top of the Coastal Division.
However, a change in format offers the league and member schools a chance to reconsider. For instance, is Tech-clemson a rivalry that needs to be played annually instead of every other year? At this point, with the Tigers having won seven in a row over Tech, many Jackets fans likely would contend that it doesn’t.
Alford, the FSU AD, proposed that having Tech as a permanent partner might not be optimal for his school. He said that he considered Atlanta “part of (FSU’S) market” with significant alumni support and strong TV viewership numbers for Seminoles games in the market.
Beyond the objective of enabling team members to play teams more regularly, the athletic directors also have considered which options would best position the league to create compelling games, get teams into the College Football Playoff and market the league.
Another drawback of the two-division format is that the conference’s two best teams often have been in the same division. If both were in contention for a CFP bid and able to play each other for the conference title, the league would be in a position where either team winning would be helpful in advancing a team to the playoff.
However, the two-division format carries the risk of an eight- or nine-win division champion pulling a championship-game upset over a division champion vying for the playoff, a scenario that could keep all of the league’s teams out of the playoff.
To that end, the 2020 season was instructive. In that Covid-altered season, the ACC included Notre Dame as a temporary football member and played in one division, with the second-ranked Fighting Irish and No. 3 Clemson playing for the conference title. When the Tigers defeated Notre Dame, both teams were able to get into the four-team playoff.
Stansbury said that an overriding conversation among athletic directors and coaches is “how do we enhance ACC football and put ourselves in the best position possible, and obviously, scheduling is going to be a part of that.”