Thursday, December 13, 2012
A proposed Walmart is no longer part of the mix.
Selig Enterprises does plan to build a mixed use development on the former site of Armstrong and Dobbs in downtown Athens. But a Walmart is not going to be one of the many retail establishments there. And neither will a grocery store. According to a press release issued by Selig Enterprises, the company has decided to opt for an anchor tenant of 35,000 square feet--less than half the size of what they proposed in the fall of 2011 when Walmart was the likely big box retailer for the development. "There will no longer be a Walmart," Selig Senior Vice President Jo Ann Chitty told Flagpole Magazine's Blake Aued. "...No one knows who the tenant or tenants might be for that space, but it has the potential to be something very, very special." …
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Where else can you get good information and a cool song?
There’s a lot of information in Athens floating around town and the Internet about the proposed Wal Mart on the edge of downtown Athens. Some of it is useful, some is not. So people who are interested in planning and design decided to build a website that would answer questions, lay out the issues and problems and tell people how to participate. Tony Eubanks, who has been involved in community land use issues for years, worked with attorney Willow Meyer for weeks on the website, before launching it Tuesday night. The splashy website comes with a song by Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers and his friends, including Mike Mills of REM and John Bell of Widespread Panic, among others. Others involved include Bertis Downs, Amy Flurry, …
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The 90-day demolition delay ends on Feb. 15, officials say.
County planning officials don't know when Selig Enterprises will submit a traffic study for its proposed mixed-use development on the edge of downtown Athens. The development has some 200 residential units and a big box store--94,000 square feet big--that's probably a Wal Mart. Both could add substantial traffic to a narrow state road, business US 78/Oconee/Oak Street that already carries an average of 27,470 cars a day, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation. When Selig does submit the study--showing driveways, curb cuts and other features, as well as traffic estimates--officials said it would go to the county's Department of Transportation and Public Works. Staff members there will review it and work with state …
Friday, December 30, 2011
New attention, new worries find their way to old warehouse district
For a lot of people, Oconee Street is just a blur on their way into downtown Athens, a commercial artery lined with gas stations, fast food restaurants and storage sheds. But for Allie Kerr, it’s home, a potent mix of people living and working on a historic main drag into town. Through the trees, at one end of the commercial spine, you can see the homeless people clinging to life in their tent city on a hill by the bypass. Going up the road, Oconee Street passes between the “older homes” of Carr’s Hill and East Athens, and brick and metal remnants of a bygone warehouse district. Nowadays, Kerr notes that “rich kids” from the growing University of Georgia live on both sides of the street, settling into new or renovated Craftsman homes …
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Oak/Oconee Corridor Study draws a crowd of comments.
It was standing room only in Oconee Street Methodist Church Monday night. More than 200 people came to talk with Athens Clarke County planners about something that wasn’t the focus of the meeting, but that was preying on many people’s minds: Wal Mart. The meeting was the third and final discussion of the Prince Avenue and Oak/Oconee street corridor study, in which planning officials learn the concerns and ideas of residents and business owners in the affected areas. Planner Bruce Lonee said comments will then be included in recommendations given to the mayor and ACC Commission, who requested the studies in 2008. On Monday night, however, people wanted to know how to stop Wal Mart from coming to the former Amstrong and Dobbs property on…
Melissa Link
1:30 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2012
It's extremely disappointing that Selig still intends to bulldoze the historic warehouse buildings--especially Jittery Joe's which is a stunning example of adaptive reuse incorporating the talents of our local creative community in a building that embodies the funky vibe that defines Athens for so many outsiders. While an astounding improvement over the initial scheme, the new plan still includes… more ›