Plans revealed for Mercedes’ neighbors

Hundreds of apartments and townhouses and likely retail space will surround the future U.S. headquarters of Mercedes-Benz in Sandy Springs, according to a state document made public on Wednesday. Homebuilder Ashton Woods plans 281 attached and detached townhomes, 378 flats, 399 apartments and more than 36,000 square feet of commercial space that is likely to be for retailers. The document also outlines an intent to develop nearly a half-million square feet of office space to be built in two phases, which would be about double the size of Mercedes’ announced plans for its corporate campus. The new details about the mixed-use project planned on the site of a historic mansion emerged in a Development of Regional Impact notice, a filing aimed at alerting the Atlanta Regional Commission and neighboring governments of large projects so that they can prepare for potential effects such as traffic and demand for schools and other services. The project is pending a zoning review by the city of Sandy Springs. A message left for an Ashton Woods executive was not immediately returned. The office component likely involves accounting for hypothetical growth for Mercedes, said Joe Cooley, Sandy Springs’ planning director. The project at Glenridge Drive and Abernathy Road has created angst among historic preservationists who object to the planned razing of Glenridge Hall, the Tudor revival mansion that dates to the 1920s that’s on a National Register of Historic Places.

AGRICULTURE goal of replacing half the nation’s coal plants with renewable energy by 2017. Bloomberg donated $50 million to the program in 2011. The latest donation, along with $20 million from others, will be spent over the next three years. He says that reducing the number of coal plants will save lives and that job growth in solar, wind and natural gas can offset coal-related jobs. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade group, says that every time the Sierra Club helps shut down a coal plant, workers are sent to the unemployment lines and electricity rates for consumers increase. The number of coal-fired power plants in the United States has dropped by more than 100 over the past decade.

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