Tuesday, June 19, 2007
News MLK Drive transformation on the way
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 1:44 PM
A former homeless shelter a stone’s throw from the Gold Dome could, ironically, become the entry point for a wave of redevelopment that is eventually expected to turn the gritty eastern end of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive into a dense mix of condo towers and street-level boutiques.
The familiar warehouse complex is part of a 3.8-acre property at 188 MLK Drive owned by Blood ‘n’ Fire Ministries that’s now up for sale and getting offers in the range of $2 million an acre, says Larry Culbertson, a broker with the C Group.
For several weeks, one of the brick buildings on the site – once used as a soup kitchen – has been slowly disappearing as workers salvage old wooden beams and other sought-after construction materials.
From the Downtown Connector east to Oakland Cemetery, the north side of MLK Drive has been rezoned as part of an ambitious plan to transform the Memorial Drive industrial corridor into a European-style boulevard, complete with dense housing, storefronts and sidewalk cafes.
The zoning change could eventually affect the futures of such longtime MLK fixtures as the Mattress Factory Lofts and Eyedrum arts center.
The current zoning, approved last fall by City Hall, calls for condo towers up to 16 stories tall next to the MARTA rail line, with a step-down in building height as development approaches the street. The area lying between Memorial and MLK – where Daddy D’z and a variety of other businesses are now located – is slated to become parkland, providing the city can find the money to buy it all.
City planner Karl Smith-Davids says that while no development plans for the north side of MLK have yet been submitted, “There’s been a significant amount of interest in multiple parcels†in the area.
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