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brought to you by
Chrissy
Neumann
$190,000
****If you know a friend, family
member, or coworker who would like their home featured as the
"Tuesday Tour" email the details to ****
Tuesday’s
Tip
Gritty
location attracts housing About two miles
east of downtown, Memorial Drive becomes a traffic-clogged industrial
strip dotted with factories and warehouses, including the sprawling
Parmalat dairy complex.
The most notable landmark is a giant TV
tower. I-20 roars only a block away, cutting the area off from the leafy
Grant Park neighborhood. Not the most promising place to find high-end
residential development, right?
Think again. This hardscrabble stretch has
become one of the city's most unlikely housing hot spots.
The A&P Lofts, an abandoned grocery
warehouse and bakery, was renovated in 2001 and is now home to 57
apartments. Across the street, a former used motorcycle
parts warehouse is being converted into 80 luxury condos. The Ezell
Lofts will feature marble bathrooms in each unit, a rooftop pool and a
bar/lounge in the lobby. The development company says it is shooting for
a South Beach vibe. Next door is the Metal Works Townhomes, a
46-unit complex of brightly colored, three-story townhomes.
Loft conversions and luxury condos are
nothing new to Midtown and Buckhead, Atlanta's most cosmopolitan
neighborhoods. But in recent years, the trend has spread to industrial
areas like the Memorial corridor that in the past would have scared off
developers. Condos line busy DeKalb Avenue along the
MARTA line and CSX rail yard east of downtown. The new M West townhouses
recently opened on the site of a former lumberyard, near freight yards
in heavily industrial northwest Atlanta. The Dynamic Metals Lofts, a new
development near the King Historic District, sits beside a metal factory
and near a string of auto shops and warehouses.
The trend is fueled by people like Allan
Altman, who want to live in an intown loft without paying Midtown or
Buckhead prices or squeezing into a tiny space in those neighborhoods.
Altman and his partner moved into a
three-story, 1,700-square-foot home in the Metal Works last August. The
townhouse, which cost about $240,000, has a two-car garage, a side yard,
two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
"It would be unaffordable in Midtown," said
Altman, a real estate agent. Meanwhile, Altman, 45, gets to enjoy life in
the city. He's a short drive from downtown and Midtown. And the area
around his new home is changing fast, he notes, with a growing roster of
restaurants, bars and cafes. "It's hot -- that whole Memorial corridor is
coming up," he said. "From my point of view, [the Metal Works] is the
best investment I could make intown right now, because prices are so
high" elsewhere. The average home in the area around the Metal
Works costs $81,700, according to the 2000 U.S. census. That compares
with $230,000 in Midtown and $387,400 in Buckhead.
Christopher Rampton moved into the A&P
Lofts in May. Rampton, 22, doesn't mind being in an industrial area.
He's close to his downtown office and near bars and clubs in the trendy
East Atlanta neighborhood. "Location was huge for me, because I ride my
bike to work, and I don't want to deal with a commute at all," he said.
Rampton and his roommate share a
1,900-square-foot, two-bedroom loft that includes soaring ceilings, huge
windows and a large back deck that looks out onto the busy
Glenwood-Memorial Connector. The deck has a large container garden,
several benches and a bowling alley.
"I guess in a Utopian universe, there
wouldn't be that much traffic around me," he said. "But I like living in
the city. I don't mind [the noise]."
Atlanta developer George Rohrig also is
betting on the area. Rohrig, who has built restaurants in Buckhead and
Midtown and now is branching out with strip centers in Grant Park and
Kirkwood, owns a former train depot on Memorial that he hopes to lease
as a restaurant. The charming, all-brick Atlanta & West
Point Railroad station is at the intersection of Memorial and the
Glenwood-Memorial Connector, between the Ezell Lofts and Metal Works
Townhomes and across the street from a small assembly plant. It's also
along an abandoned rail line that makes up part of the proposed Belt
Line transit project. "We love the intersection," Rohrig said.
"There's tremendous growth there."
He cited the area's booming housing market,
including Glenwood Park, a large mixed-use community being built just
across I-20 along the connector. The development includes condos and
townhomes priced from $125,000 to more than $300,000.
And Rohrig is not concerned that the rail
depot is in an industrial setting. That's simply the new reality as
intown Atlanta continues to develop, he said.
"There's not too many pieces of land inside
the Perimeter where you can build retail and have enough traffic to
support it," Rohrig said. "Those sites are becoming extinct."
Houston businessman Larry Davis, developer of
the Metal Works Townhomes, said he steered clear of Midtown and Buckhead
when he scouted sites for his project because land there was simply too
expensive. Instead, he sought more affordable lots in close-in
neighborhoods. Davis has stuck to this formula as he's
developed projects in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix and Las Vegas. This way,
he said, he can offer more home for the price.
The market for intown living continues to
grow, Davis said, as people have gotten fed up with the suburban
commute. "The traffic wasn't as bad a decade ago," he
said. "In every large city in the U.S., people are moving back intown
because of the traffic." And Davis is expanding his Atlanta presence.
He recently bought two lots on which he plans to develop townhomes --
one near the King Plow Arts Center in northwest Atlanta and another on
Maynard Terrace and I-20 in east Atlanta.
Mecca Wilder and her husband, Warren, moved
to the A&P Lofts in 2003 after living in Buckhead. They love the
urban setting and sweeping view from their third-floor apartment.
"We're city people," said Wilder, 30. "For
us, it's nice to see a skyline." BYLINE: PAUL DONSKY
Staff
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE PROPERTY LISTED ABOVE OR THE TIP PROVIDED
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