They’ve recently purchased 25 old buildings on Peachtree, Broad and Mitchell streets south of the Five Points MARTA station, with no intention of demolition. They want to renovate the structures and bring new life to them. Preservation + renovation + use = exactly the right thing for South Downtown’s historic stock of commercial buildings.
And the company is also in talks to acquire nearby surface parking lots for future development. More goodness. Surface parking blights a large portion of South Downtown, wasting the potential of the walkable street grid and of the MARTA access, with multiple rail stations in the neighborhood.
This quote from the article is one that rings the “good urbanism” gong particularly loudly:
“Newport US is also not planning to add new structured parking, because of the area’s connectivity to MARTA. That would avoid substantial development costs that could help keep rents lower for residents and commercial tenants, but also flies in the face of Atlanta’s car-centric culture.”
That’s perfect. Building a future oriented toward transit rather than cars.