My Thoughts, by Giles Stevens

My Thoughts for the week of Feb 27th-March 5th,

Proposed Armour Drive Concrete Batch Plant &

Its impact on the future of the Beltline.

( See my slide show and the Building Permit Status Update bottom of page)

For starters, as you can tell by the title of our website, I am normally very much pro-development. However the planned concrete plant on Armour Drive seems short sided in many ways. This development could drastically undermine the city's hopes of ever seeing the proposed Beltline become a reality. If ever there were a time to utilize the overreaching powers of eminent domain approved by the recent Supreme Court rulings, now might be the time. I hope this posting will reflect the true gravity of the situation.

Recently, there have been several stories run in both the AJC and Business Chronicle on the two pending concrete batch plants near the Armour Drive industrial area. These proposed developments will play a much larger role in the future of our city than many have thought.

Here is some background on the the two developments: check out this article in the AJC, thestorygroup.com's article:

"Group fighting two concrete batch plans" and this letter "Stop the Concrete Plant" sent out by a concerned citizen in the area.

You might be thinking, "Ok... what does this have to do with the Beltline?"

Well, let me explain. I first got involved with the Beltline after seeing its close proximity to a land assemblage project I was trying to put together involving the proposed concrete plant. After attending a few beltline meetings and reading everything there is to read about it, I have come to a few conclusions.

Now I am not saying that the people involved (the Mayor, City Council, Friends of the Beltline, Kathy Woolard, Ryan Gravel, & TPL) aren't doing their very best at a lofty goal. I am simply saying that some of the vision for the project has been too much "Show" and not enough "Go". At a panel meeting put on by the city council I asked: "Who is doing the actual paper work to put these acquisitions in motion???" They all looked around at each other as if to say: "You mean we actually have to buy these important right-of-ways?."

Here is how all of this ties into the proposed concrete plant:

The proposed beltline is a 22 mile continuous loop around the cities inner core. The Armour Drive industrial area is located at the northeast convergence of the beltline as it makes its way to Lindbergh station. (Please see this map) This active rail corridor is a bottleneck of epic proportions as it relates to the beltline. The proposed path of the beltline to reach the Lindbergh Marta station is crowded with active rail traffic, very narrow, and will require an expensive new bridge to span Peachtree Creek (Picture). The plan also calls for a 90 degree turn that includes a 100+/- foot raise in elevation. Now I don't travel by rail that often, but I don't recall ever seeing a 90 degree turn, no less at an incline.

Here are my thoughts of how the "powers that be" could "kill two birds with one stone."

UPDATE 2-7-06: (It looks like I am not the only one thinking about this... check out this map done by Citizens for Progressive Transit: http://www.cfpt.org/documents/armour_area.pdf)

The slide show I created was originally built to market a grouping of land in the area to developers that I have since abandoned. I have run with this idea as far as I can. I hope someone will pick up the torch where I have left off. The future of the Beltline ever reaching its true potential seems to be hanging in the balance in this one area. I hope the people involved will see the massive economic benefit of my proposal verses the current plan.

Please excuse the real estate numbers at the beginning of my slide show.

Click Here to Download: (Large file may take a while)

UPDATE!!

Here is the current status of the building permit for 340 Armour Drive as of 2-27-06

Permit # BLC1 200500993

If we plan on stopping this thing we better do something soon because they are moving right along through the process. It looks like they have half of the requirements completed

(Click here to view Permit)