Kevin Green: This $48M Site Could Change Midtown Atlanta

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I mean, this is a generational opportunity to create something that's going to be there forever. The experience of a district is not defined by the lobby of a building. It's defined by what happens outside that building when you exit and you start walking around. I made the very wise decision back in college to quit school and become a rock and roll star, and it just taking a little longer than I expected. Just

waiting for that breakout. When the Olympics happened, Midtown was a place people were told not to go. It really wasn't safe, particularly after dark. The larger idea is how can this be one of the best free things to do in Atlanta? So how do you have art and performance at a high quality that's free?

Hey guys, welcome back to the Sunbelt Developers Podcast. Today we have Kevin Green with Midtown Alliance talking about Midtown and all the things that are happening there. Kevin, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. You are fresh off of a trip to Fiji? Yes. Jet lagged and happy and um relaxed. Hopefully. Yeah, no, it was a great caffeinated. Um you said you were there for y'all

were playing some music. Yeah.

We had five shows in Fiji, believe it or not. It was it was very interesting. Yeah. So were the crowds. We got there for almost two weeks. Um we traveled with a big crowd, and then we were around villages where people came out and had never seen a rock and roll show. So it was uh a memorable trip.

How does something like this even come together?

Um, friend of friends. I've got a band that lives in different cities, one of whom knows another touring band and knows a person who was putting together a rock and roll cruise, and it was to happen in Fiji, and about six months before um the cruise ship ran aground and uh sank. And so it became the uh shipwreck tour, where which was land-based, which is a lot better than being on

a cruise ship, I think.

Yeah.

And so we went to different islands in Fiji and uh had stages and backlin the gigs and played with this band called the Black Moods and uh had a blast.

Very cool. Were you drumming?

Yes, super drummer. So I'm not a proper musician, but they let me hang out with proper musicians. Very cool.

And what what kind of music? It's rock and roll, it's original.

Okay, very some jazz influence, some funk. Yeah. But um, you know, mostly original rock and roll with some really talented players. Wow. Bass guitar, drums, sacks.

On the island tours of Fiji. That's it was that's pretty cool.

It was idyllic.

Yeah. Um well, welcome back to normal life. Like as exotic as jumping around on islands. Or like the logistics with that.

I mean, uh I mean, if you ever get to LA, we had a rehearsal studio in LA, and then it's an 11-hour flight west to get to Fiji. Cool. And then it's a bunch of islands and a bunch of ferry rides.

Okay. Like stages there. Did you all have to set up?

There were stages, then we had it backlined, which means that there's a Fiji production company that comes along with the PA and the mics and the drums, which were wonderful. You never really know what you're gonna get. And uh brand new set of DW drums with the price tag still on.

Wow, wow. I I didn't know.

Dude, that's a that's amazing. All I brought was sticks and you know, swimsuits.

Wow. And that is that's a treat. I've played drums for a long time, and yeah, you don't know what you're gonna get, especially like playing in churches and stuff growing up, and you show up and it's like the youth groups, toms that are blasted and the symbols are cracked and yeah, particularly saltwater gear. It's pretty so what's like the funding behind something like that? Were you all I got telling me about the economics there?

Like how how does that work? It's not my get rich scheme. No, no, no, but like Is it is it like a hobby kind of thing? I know like people touring, it's like you kind of have to front it, but I don't do y'all sell tickets and um how does that work?

In in this instant, um people paid to be a part of the the entourage or the or the um audience, if you will, that were gonna originally gonna be on the cruise ship. And then uh that just comped our our uh flights and accommodations. So it was a basically a cost-free trip to Fiji for a couple weeks.

Very cool.

All right.

Yeah. I made the very wise decision back in college to quit school and become a rock and roll star, and it just taken a little longer than I expected. Yeah, just waiting for for that breakout.

Uh that seems like a really cool trip though. Uh just getting to go play drums somewhere else.

I would beyond drums, let me just say Fiji. Yeah. Not only beautiful, the people are unbelievably welcoming. Like no people I've ever experienced in any of my travels.

Well.

Um, friendly, welcoming, village type, um, genuine is beautiful.

Very cool. I'll have to go sometime.

Yeah, I highly recommend.

Get out to Fiji. Well, um Yeah, I guess welcome. Can you tell every like what's what's your background? So you you told me you went to school, you were a carpenter for a little bit, and how how did you get to Midtown Alliance?

It's not really a straight line. Yeah. Um literally was in college playing in a band. Um, we were a biggest band we thought in Columbia, South Carolina. So we were gonna make a move to a major market. We looked at Atlanta and we looked at LA. We figured we didn't know anybody in either place, so LA was just more gas money. So we packed up and moved to LA, played there for a couple years. Uh the guys in my band

were journeyman carpenters. They were two brothers and good players and great carpenters, so I learned an actual skill. So we did uh custom construction, had a framing crew that built houses along the coast of uh of LA, and then played at night and recorded. And so I came to my census, um, came back to school in Virginia, finished up, worked my way through as a carpenter, came to Atlanta

to go to law school, um, practiced law for 10 years as a trial lawyer, came to my senses again, kind of moved into the environmental nonprofit space, um, worked for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, um, created a water planning district for Metro Atlanta, which was a kind of a fun story, and uh ran another nonprofit and then came to Midtown Alliance. So basically, I'm just a guy that can't keep

a job.

Yeah, what's next?

So uh, you know, the through line isn't exactly uh straight, but you know, looking back, it it kind of makes sense.

Yeah. Do you still do any carpentry work? I do.

Yeah, I live in a 1906 house. There's something always falling off or needing to be nailed back on.

So got it. And I mean, do you make furniture or is this more like finishes?

I'm more a frame carpenter, finish uh trim carpenter, but I do make furniture and other stuff.

Okay. That is not much man man of many talents. I think um I mentioned this earlier, but when it might have been one of the first times we ever met, but you were at the Quantas Club downtown, and we were sitting there at lunch, and I think we were talking about drums, and he's and and you said, Yeah, I I I could play the spoons. And I you were like, hand me your spoon. And you just started like just going at it. I was like, wow, I just didn't know

you could you could do that.

So yeah, the spoons are lots of stupid human tricks, man.

But uh any spoons happen in Fiji? Yes, they did, in fact.

Yeah, somebody just sent me a uh some a text of uh uh a video text of uh me playing spoons with a Fijian uh a cappella and guitar group.

Can we put that on our feeds?

You certainly can. Sure, yeah.

Send that to me after we'll just 15, 20 seconds. Kevin Green playing spoons in Fiji. That'll be all over the news. Um okay, so uh we hit on uh uh on a bunch of things there. This what what are we you were talking about the water uh campaign? What was that project?

Aaron Ross Powell So I was a lawyer in private practice, and I guess I got tired of being a professional arguer, and um I really wanted to get paid to work with people to agree on things versus to argue things. And so I was looking to move my practice away from litigation into public interest law. So I interviewed some lawyers that were doing that kind of work in Atlanta, and I learned there was a federal district

judge, Marvin Schub, who was about to cut off wastewater permits for the Chattahoochee because it failed water quality standards. So you can't have a booming um Metro Atlanta when you don't have any place to put wastewater. It's not a very glamorous thing to think about, but we got small rivers, if you think about it. We're one of the largest human settlements uh in the United States with the least amount of surface

water. Um, and we don't have any groundwater. And so, you know, putting these big pipes in the Chattahoochee violated water quality standards. So I pitched uh Sam Williams uh at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, who ran it at the time on doing something, and and he and Harold Reheis, who was the State Environmental Protection Director, got together and we formed a task force and

walked people through the issue and ultimately uh lobbied and created the Metro North Georgia Water Planning District through the General Assembly. So it's one of the biggest regional water planning districts of its kind in the United States. It's been in existence since 2004, I think. Well, I think it's a big reason why uh Atlanta keeps and Georgia keeps prevailing in the tri-state water wars, because

it dealt not only with wastewater, but also stormwater and water conservation.

So what were the solutions? So it wasn't continuing to dump it into the Chattahoochee?

Yeah, it was basically it was sort of a tragedy of the commons. A lot of different local governments were treating to different standards because their permits were came up at different times, and we really needed everybody to chin to the same bar. And we needed to really address conservation, low-flow toilets, you know, uh low-flow showerheads, et cetera, not as much growth on septic. And so it was a combination of a lot of things. But essentially it said,

look, if you want a permit, you gotta treat to these standards and you gotta do these things within your jurisdiction because what are there, 130 local governments in Metro Atlanta between counties, cities, and and uh and others. So, you know, it was basically a let's level set, let's everybody chin to the same bar, and it's a condition of getting a permit.

And it worked. Well. So I guess what what did y'all end up doing with all the the wastewater?

Did y'all have to have some major infrastructure project to basically the the the the wastewater treatment plants needed to put in plans to treat to squeaky clean standards, and that's what's occurred. Okay, got it. And then of course there's other um corresponding lawsuits about you know combined sewer overflows and other things, and and those have been addressed as well. So it's interesting, man. It's it's

it's the it's the hidden part of growth and development that no one really thinks about. They just take it for granted. Um you flush your toilet and it's taken care of. But when you go to the wastewater treatment plants and you see, you know, shopping carts up against the screens that uh that strain things, it really is an eye-opener in terms of just what a tremendous uh bit of infrastructure that is required

to make a region like this continue to grow.

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every project you've got. Northspire has facilitated more than $500 billion of projects. Please visit Northspire.com. Again, that's Northspire.com. Now back to the show. What? That makes me think about the pipes that what was it a couple years ago we found out that basically our entire water system needs to be replaced in Atlanta? Yeah.

Do you know what what's the latest of that? I mean, it's a it's a long thing. We've got a a penny sales tax that's going towards, you know, splitting up combined sewers, and we've got the city's got a ton of um of infrastructure that's gotta be uh updated. You know, we do a lot of work in streets with streetscape projects, and we constantly hit water lines and no one knew were there.

Wow.

As I understand, I think they were even digging up wooden water pipes.

We have Brian Brian Leary, he when he was talking about Atlantic Station, he told us about they had a bunch of wood pipes under Atlantic Steel.

But so there's all kinds of stuff under the streets we don't know about. We did Juniper Streetscape, ended up with a bunch of uh trolley tracks. We knew they were there, but um no one else did. Yeah. Two inches below the tarmac, there's a full set of trolley tracks.

Wow. So is that that project's done now? The Juniper.

Yeah, it's a punch list at this point. Yeah. It's a perennial punch list.

Yeah. How long has that been in the works? I asked if it was like 15 years, maybe the first idea came.

Yeah, let's see here. Um when I started, it was 2011. Yeah. And uh the project had federal money on it.

Back then.

Yeah, and it's basically in its final punch list right now.

Wow.

That's the longest project that we've been associated with. Okay. And it was we could have an hour-long podcast on that project alone.

I don't even feel like I'm qualified to ask the right question exactly.

Yeah, I I probably need a therapy for that conversation too.

Man. But you're almost done.

Yeah, you know, it's worked out.

That's amazing.

So what so the objective there was just better flow and just objective there, uh like all of our objectives, is you know, we've got if you add up all the lane miles in Midtown, just 1.2 square miles, it's something like 80 linear miles of lanes stretching from here to Athens. 99% of that is dedicated to cars. Now we've got a micromobility

revolution with scooters. We've got people on bikes. We've got to give them safe places to be. They can't be on sidewalks because pedestrians and wheeled vehicles don't really coexist. And so we had to create a network of protected lanes. And so that was a primary motivation was where can we take a four-lane cross-section and turn it into a three-lane and take a lane and use parked cars as a buffer? And so those are

the types of projects that we've been advancing. And I think we were ahead of the game. I think Midtown Alliance, even before I got there, was doing really thoughtful things like reducing slip lanes and squaring off the intersections so it's safer for pedestrians and making the crossings better and you know, doing streetscape improvements. So this is a continuing saga of uh how do you create a walkable urban district? And, you know,

that's a big component.

Aaron Powell That is I mean it's a major artery straight straight through the entire district. Yeah. What Juniper Street is. What other I mean, uh is there another one that's on the horizon? Sure.

Peachtree Street. What are y'all doing there? I mean, we're trying to make it better. You could not build a four-lane cross section, two lanes in each direction right now. You it wouldn't be legal. You'd need center medians, you'd need dedicated turn lanes, and it doesn't work, particularly with curb management. Um you got a lot of trucks, you got a lot of cars that take up the curb lane, so it's essentially one lane in each direction,

and if somebody's turning left, nobody's getting through. Um so we're looking at alternative lane configurations to make that corridor work better, to make it flow better, uh, to increase sidewalk widths where we have an opportunity to do that, to have some dedicated loading where we need it, but to really require some of the loading to happen in in the loading docks that have been created, even though it's more convenient to block a lane and go in the front door.

I want to ask you about that. It's it's become a a thing. Yeah. Just people pop their hazards and it's all I mean, you drive up Peachtree, it's you probably see half dozen cars just from one spot where they're doing it. Half dozen a block. Right. Is there I mean, what's the legal side of that? Is there it's not like you can get ticketed. I guess you can pop your hazards for

any reason and No, you can get ticketed.

It's just that there's no APD doesn't have the the people power to sit there and write tickets. It's like playing whack-a-mole.

Yeah.

We'll do details. You know, we work with with off-duty officers that can write parking tickets, and it's illegal to block a travel lane. Um but you know, you run a detail for two hours, you write 50 tickets, they leave, and 10 minutes later you got the same problem because it's a new crop of people.

Yeah.

And for delivery drivers, it's a cost of doing business. They just put the tickets in the inbox and they get back to the back to their uh their uh office and it's paid. So what's the solution? I think it's automated enforcement. It's cameras, it takes a picture of uh license plate, sends the owner of the vehicle a ticket. And if it's a commercial delivery, it's points on the license,

not just a fine. That's what changes it.

Yeah. It's it's real. And I I don't see it going anywhere. I mean, DoorDash and Uber Eats and deliveries, and it just keeps going on and on.

Maybe we'll have robots that are writing tickets at some point.

Yeah. There's uh the undaunted group that's down in South Downtown. Yeah.

They've got those robots. Robot dogs.

Robo dogs, yeah. Yeah. That's a thing.

I saw my first robot human outside Pond City Market the other day. Which he was an advertisement. He's a little guy, about that tall, with an advertisement on both sides, and you're just walking.

Just hanging out. Wow. That's scary. I uh yeah, it is. I I watched the I know over in China they have these like robot Olympics. Have you seen those where they're they're on like a track and they're just all running and there's all sorts of events that they do. Um it's nuts where we're where we're at in the world. Did you you watch the the Tesla Roadster event last night? I did see that, yes.

I don't know what you use that car for, but it's pretty freaking cool.

It's yeah. It makes you wonder what we're gonna be looking at in three to five years. Across the board.

Yeah. Yeah. I know all the automation and um I don't know we've we've talked about it a number of times on the podcast of like what is the future of driving. I have a Tesla and I I think I use the autopilot probably eighty percent of the time. Yeah. And I our son's probably not gonna have a driver's license and all that. So maybe some of these things will solve themselves, like the popping the hazards and it's

gonna be fascinating.

I mean, ten years from now, you know, if you've got what do you do with all these parking podiums?

I don't know. They're gonna be hard to tear down. Has Waymo or any of those groups like do y'all interact with them when they send a fleet into Midtown?

No. We get you know complaints about them because they tend to travel in packs, but no, we're we're not really interacting with them.

Okay. Um I don't know if that that came across real quick.

There's been there's been some proposals to put some major charging facilities in Midtown, but we're trying to beat those back. We really don't want a fleet of Waymo's in a walkable urban district. Right, right. Those can be awesome. And it wasn't Waymo, but it's still it's coming. Yeah. They gotta be charged somewhere. The question is is where is optimal?

Right.

Um, but this is gonna be a really interesting chapter for humans.

Oh yeah. Yeah, man. Well, all right, let's let's get going on some other things. So you so trial attorney, you helped with this big water initiative. You're at at the Metro Chamber and I guess how did you get to Midtown Alliance? What was that?

Um the uh previous executive or director or president, I guess, was Susan Mendem. She'd been there for I want to say 27 years and is really responsible for the great things that have happened in Midtown. I mean, she shepherded Blueprint Midtown, you know, she started with a fledgling nonprofit with, you know, folding chairs and card tables and and built it to a really formidable organization.

So I came in and inherited uh a successful organization, and we've continued to uh grow and evolve as Midtown has.

Were you looking at any other kind of role at that time, like getting out of the chamber?

You know, interestingly, I didn't even put my hat in the ring for for this role. I didn't think I was qualified because I really didn't have a real estate background, and I thought that would be a really heavy requirement. But um I got a call from the recruiting committee that I should put my hat in the ring, so I did, and the rest is history.

Yeah.

I got the best job in Atlanta now. So it's funny how that happens. Yeah.

And the timing. I mean, you've been on a on a wave, which is pretty incredible. I I want to ask you. So This picture behind us is I've seen it a million times. It's it's a famous picture for a reason. Can you tell us what's going on here?

Well, we kept trying to describe to people the change that had occurred in Midtown, you know, just since 2000, and that's when the improvement district was created. So that's kind of a milestone for us. But as in many things, a picture tells a thousand words. And what that image shows is every building in blue has been delivered since 2000. And the buildings in green are under construction,

and that's a bit of an old image. So the minute we put those out, they the buildings change colors, but it gives you a sense of change. And I don't know of a square mile anywhere in the country that's seen this volume of development, you know, 21, 22 billion dollars of investment in 25 years. And a lot of that's residential. Yeah. I remember when I was interviewing

for the role back in 2011, I was talking about I'd love to see more apartments in Midtown, and I got my wish.

Got a lot of those.

We got a lot of those, yeah.

Yeah, what was Midtown like in 2011?

I mean, you know, it was coming out of a recession, um, which gave everybody a chance to catch their breath. Um but I think, you know, since 2011, we've probably delivered don't hold me to this number, but 70 buildings, so it looked different. And they were just a low rise or

surface parking lot or or obsolete one-story structures. And um, you know, uh over the course of that time, a lot of sites we thought would be office sites ended up being multifamily. So there was some hand-wringing going on about that. But ultimately, here we've got, you know, a nice mixed-use district. And, you know, we got people walking their dogs at 7 o'clock

in the in the morning and, you know, going to dinner, and that supports retail. So this is not a monoculture like it was in earlier times where it was, you know, came to life at at 8 30 a.m. and and you know, everything disappeared at six. Right.

So you've had probably a couple cities ask you how to replicate this in other other towns. Like how what do you say to them? Yeah, I mean, I think uh this could have not happened.

I mean, I would say that when the Olympics happened, Midtown was a place people were told not to go. It really wasn't safe, particularly after after dark, a lot of vice, a lot of surface parking lots, a lot of broken glass, a lot of tired retail. So, you know, the stakeholders, including some that you've interviewed, Steve Nigren most notably, uh, said we need to

have a plan. And so uh they got together, um, probably a hundred plus public meetings, delivered something called Blueprint Midtown, which was a physical plan for what Midtown could be. And it involved, you know, how do we create compelling streetscapes? How do we push buildings up to the street, put active uses at the ground floor? You know, how do we build out 15-foot-wide sidewalks and street furniture and street

trees? And ultimately that got baked into a physical plan. It resulted in the single largest rezoning in the city's history. So the city was an absolutely big partner. 1.4 square miles of the city got rezoned in one fell swoop. Um, you know, density was was sky high, and um, that coincided with positive uh

positive wins from the development community, and so we started seeing a lot of development. Um and, you know. But if you think back, what if they hadn't, you know, what if they hadn't and and and after the blueprint, they needed a funding source. Like, how are you going to create these streetscapes? You can you can have private development do it, but there's a lot of existing development where it needs to

happen. And so there needed to be a an organization that had the funds and uh more people waking up every day to create an exceptional urban experience. And so the Midtown Community Improvement District was formed in 2000, and that provided a funding base that could be used for match money to get federal, state, city money to build streetscapes,

et cetera. And so hit the fast forward button since then. Midtown's delivered 16 linear miles of streetscapes, which means wide sidewalks, street furniture, you know, um pedestrian um lighting, um 3,000 street trees. I mean, it makes a big difference.

You're kind of hitting on it, but for a CID, is it is it just infrastructure and streetscape kind of work that y'all do, or where do you overlap with development review committees and Yeah.

So so if you think about our organization in a nutshell, we're a we're a nonprofit 501c3 if people track IR IRS codes, but we've been in existence since 78. Um engines really kicked alive in 2000 when the Midtown Community Improvement District was created. So those are two entities that work kind of both sides of the of the same coin. We've got separate governing

boards for each. But the CID shepherds a portion of property taxes provided by office, hotel, and retail, and they put those towards the highest priority um needs to keep to make this district work. Um, because districts like this don't get created by accident and they don't stay

great by accident. It requires day-to-day management and it requires looking at what are going to be the most impactful infrastructure projects and how can we use the smallest portion of our CID dollars to leverage a large portion of public dollars and actually get stuff done. So, short answer to your question: the CID funds Midtown Blue Public Safety, which is very robust. It funds

our green team, which is acts as sort of an added layer of maintenance and landscaping above what the city does. Um it funds infrastructure projects, uh, generally with a local match. Last couple of years we've delivered a bunch of streetscape projects, 15th Street Extension, Juniper, Piedmont's under construction, 5th Street, um, etc. And

um, you know, our CID money has been about 15% of those dollars, and we've got in federal, state, and city money to pay the other 85%. So uh it's all about leverage too. Yeah.

You're the rudder for the ship.

Yeah, and we we'll we'll design the projects, we bid the projects, we construction manage the projects, and in many cases we will maintain uh aspects of the projects after we deliver them.

Yeah. It's probably a perfect time to ask you about Midtown Green. So it's park. I mean, where'd y'all come up with was it 48 million to buy a four-acre site in the middle of town? And how did you beat out developers? And tell me that story. Like how did how did that come about?

Yeah, it's it's remarkable. And it's a it's a it's a big swing and it's an exciting project. Um so since I started a Midtown Alliance, we've been looking at opportunistic ways to add public space to this fast growing district. I mean, we've got 1.2 square miles of development and about an acre of

open space that's permanently preserved. So we we really needed spaces for people. And this is within y'all's within our footprints. Right. Right.

Somebody would say, oh, well, Piedmont Park's right there, but that's not that's outside of your immediate control.

Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's outside of our control, and it's it's a wonderful gift to the city and a wonderful asset. It it has a different function. But if you if you think about this amount of development in this dense of an urban district, you've got to have places within that for people to go and for people to gather. And that's what we've been looking at opportunistically. Where can we find a challenged half acre where we

could build a small park or a plaza? We've been looking at even public right-of-way where we can take spaces that are currently on-street parking and turn them into, you know, plazas. And we've done that most recently on Commercial Road Commons on what's essentially 9th Street, which is uh Peacht Street Place. But long story short, we've been looking at opportunistically at small places, and then we had this

giant four-acre hole centrally located in the middle of Midtown that had, you know, failed development plans. And it's amazing, it's a good idea. For decades. Yeah. It's amazing when you think of all this has happened. Yeah. So you had four acres in the middle of everything that had, you know, not been developed, and frankly, it was one of the biggest eyesores in the city. So I think it was a combination

of um visionary thinking from our leadership, um, a downturn in the real estate markets where um there wasn't a lot of competition for new development sites. This is a big site, too, four acres. It's it's a multiple tower site, and those are kind of hard um to stage anyway. So we talked to the uh the owners that

had gotten the property back in foreclosure, originally thinking we might want to try and get a piece of it, but ultimately, as we talked about it, I mean, how many opportunities do you have in a fast-growing city to create permanent open space in the middle of everything, a block from Marta? Never. I mean, this is a generational opportunity to

create something that's going to be there forever. And so we swallowed hard. We'd been saving up money for a big move all along. We had 10 million cash. Um, we negotiated a $46 million sale price. We financed 38.3 to give us some money to do some interim improvements and to do some concept planning. And so uh that's what we've done.

Sumbbelt Developers is brought to you by Northspire, built by a developer for developers. Visit Northspire.com. Again, that's Norspire.com. Now back to the show. So we're off to the races. We are. I think you sent me a couple slides here. I'm gonna so we've got this is what it looked like forever. This is what it looked like, you know, a year ago. Yeah. And now

I you just flip me. So this is the renderings for the for the park eventually. This isn't how it looks today. I think did you include any from today? No, these are just I didn't include any from today, no, but I can do that. We'll we'll throw those in in post, but um I I want so let's before we dive into this, give us the history of the site. So it was it was Atlanta Symphony at one point.

Yeah, we want to go way in the before time. It was a residential street that had houses that lined 14th Street with um, you know, gardens and fields and horse stables behind. That was 1915, 1920. Um, and then really didn't develop much uh through the eighties, nineties.

I mean, at most it was a piece of a one-story building and some surface parking. The houses, of course, disappeared, but um nothing really happened. There was no major development on this site. Uh the Woodruff Art Center uh purchased it to become uh Atlanta Symphony headquarters with a with a Calatrava signature piece of architecture that ultimately didn't come to fruition.

Uh they sold to a developer out of New York that had big ideas for what a 70-story condo project and other things. And uh they moved a bunch of dirt and dug a hole, and that didn't come to fruition, so they lost it. And uh timing worked out where we were able to get it.

Cool. Okay. So then that's when it went into full foreclosure. I think there was a lawsuit going on for a number of years, and then they got it back all clean and it was able to clear the path for y'all to buy it.

Yeah. And so we got yeah, we got clean title and and all that good stuff.

Aaron Powell Cool. Okay, so yeah, let's let's dive in. Y'all you just went through this elaborate RFP process. You selected an architect and had a bunch of different ideas. I'd love to hear how that played out.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we we had the site, we knew we needed to do interim improvements, and so I'll start there. We brought in 785 truckloads of dirt to fill in the hole and uh landscaped, uh, grasped it, and it is now open as of last week of August for public use, and people are using it. We're programming the site just on an interim basis, got picnic tables

and stuff there. Our our public safety team and our green team have moved into the former sales center, that white building that's 4,000 square feet and works out perfectly. So we've got an interim use for that. And uh this is just the beginning. Uh and so along in a parallel path, we we looked at what could this be? I mean, it's four acres, but what would make the biggest impact

for a public space in the middle of a fast-growing urban district? And we weren't satisfied with it, just needs to be grass and picnic blankets and frisbees. But what makes it a place that is like a a civic attraction without walls and an experience you can't get anywhere else? And that's what we challenged

design teams to come up with. So we did an RFQ. Uh we expected to get maybe 12, 15 responses. We got 49 from national and international teams, multidisciplinary teams, uh, went through a selection process, so it was hard. Uh selected uh team led by field operations, which is well-known landscape architecture public space firm,

most notably done the Highline and other projects uh nationally and internationally, and they were a terrific team to work with. And so uh we worked together with, you know, as you can imagine, a lot of stakeholders. We engaged over 6,000 people to tell us what they wanted to see on the site through surveys and and uh physical meetings and got a lot of ideas. And people didn't want just

passive lawns, they wanted performance, they wanted food and bev. They wanted a reason to go on a Thursday afternoon and come back on a Saturday night. Um they wanted a water feature. Uh and so we had, you know, challenging topo. It's not a flat site, it's 60 feet from the highest podium we want to connect to to the to the deepest

part. And so that added some muscular topography that we could put into some of these uh um concept plans. And so that's what you see right there. I will I will quickly note that we're in discussions with the adjacent property owners, um One Atlantic Center, Promenade, you know, 1180. Um some of what you see on that rendering, uh, particularly

towards the west side, is is is likely not going to happen now. It'll probably be if anything, a phase two. So um I don't think we'll have a direct connection into one Atlantic Center to start with. And uh, but you know we're spitballing a lot of ideas, but most of what you see there is what we're moving forward in the schematic.

Yeah. So I think you know this, but for context, our Cushman's office is at 1180. Yeah. And talking about the topo, I mean it's it's a huge drop-off from this. So this is the gym right here. There's this kind of nice point, but I mean, this is like a 15-foot wall right here. Yeah, more than that. So to create yeah, to create a structure that you're gradually

declining and going down. Um that's no small lift. Curious, what what is this? Is this some retail under here?

Yeah, that's that's conceived as sort of a grab and go um food and bev thing that would serve the that pavilion. Um, jury's out on that because we're also looking at a community building that's a liner building up against the cousin's parking deck that you see right there because it's a ravine, it really doesn't have any use for us. It's a 40-foot dip.

Yeah.

Great place to put a liner building. We want food and bev. We want a community space. We want, and I gave you an old rendering. Um, love to sub it. There you go. There's a newer one, but an active rooftop there that we could use for event rentals. Um and so we're we're continuing to tweak this design, looking for more direct connections, maybe lowering the ground floor of that building and another floor to more directly

connect uh to the to the pavilion lawn. Um so we're still working to improve this. We're not in any rush. And um we've got a great multiplier effect with other privately owned public space around there that's gonna make it feel bigger than four acres. And that's another I mean, it's just a wonderful site. Um, you

know, out of the gate, we've got about forty-seven thousand people within a seven-minute walk. So that's a built-in user base right there. And if you think people get in there with bikes, scooters, MARTA right next door at the Art Center station, or vehicles, I mean, that number increases exponentially.

Sure.

Uh have you talked to any about timing and funding for the master delivery? No, not at all. Okay.

Can we not just do you have any any idea? We talk about funding and timing every day, every minute of every day. Um we're still uh we're working it to try and you know get some first of all, finalize the design where we can cost it out and have numbers that we can stand behind with confidence. Um that's happening. I'm not ready to exactly put a number on this thing right now. Um we're talking with, as you can

guess, philanthropy about you know what they would need to see to be supporters of this. Uh not surprisingly, you know, they want to see participation from private property that's gonna benefit from an amenity like this. And and and really a lot of that's already happened because the CID has taken down the land at no small, but almost a $50 million cost, um, and that's commercial property owners. Um

and they also want to see, you know, how do you sustain this over time? You know, if you're gonna invest in capital, you want to think past the ribbon cutting and what makes a space like this successful ten years down the road. And for something like this, highly programmed, you know, impeccably maintained, secured, uh, that's not free.

And so yeah, how how do you fund something like that?

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, through a combination of sources. And we're talking, in fact, I was on the phone two days ago with the new director of the Clyde Warren Park, which is comparably sized in Dallas, which is a freeway cap, if you're familiar with it. Five, five acres there, and just understanding their experience in terms of how they how they uh get program sponsorships and how

they have participation of adjacent property owners and earned revenue. Um they're expanding that park to create a separate building they can do event rental. And so that's an another motivation for us to have a there there within the park where we can leverage that. So it's a combination of an all of the above funding opportunity. And so we're we're working through that

right now, and I think we'll have stuff we can talk about publicly in the next three or four weeks.

Aaron Powell All right. Well, this doesn't come out for three or four weeks. You can go ahead and share it with us if you want. Um I'm kidding. Uh okay, last question about this was the timing. Do you have any idea?

Is this a five or a ten-year or you know, I think um two years to plan to get from schematic to permitted designs, probably two years to fundraise, two years to build. So fundraising and planning can happen in the same time period. You have to obviously have to have the money before you start construction. And so four years? All right. Don't

hold me to that. Yeah, the older I get, the the you know, twenty thirty-one doesn't seem like that long, that far away for me anymore.

I don't blink. There's there's office tenants that are shopping that don't have expirations till twenty thirty-one.

Yeah. So that would be that would be an ambitious timeline, but if everything uh falls into place. Yeah.

You've come so far already. And I love the design. I I think I went to TVS had some event, and they I don't know if it was some of their younger designers, they kind of had like their own internal competition for some of those designs. Yeah, they did a beautiful job. There was like all these different trees and there was so many different ideas. I I'm curious. What were your like favorite two others that obviously this is the final

version, but were there some others that stood out to you?

Aaron Powell I mean, we learned from everybody, uh including the TVS uh uh design charade. I mean, these were um really talented designers that spent a lot of m a lot of time thinking about what to do with this site. Some really creative things. I wish we had more four-acre sites we could do all kinds of different things.

Yeah.

But if you think about a site like this, you know, again, it's how do you create the habit of returning? This is going to be really art forward. It's right next to the largest concentration of arts and culture, you know, in our region, really in the Southeast with the Woodruff Arts Center and everything around it. So, you know, how do you create a pavilion that's plug and play where you don't have to set up stage infrastructure, PA, lighting trusses every time you want to have a performance,

but you can have performers just plug in and go? How do you have other things happening that are performance that aren't, you know, at that scale? Um, how does the personality of the place change at night? You know, with things like technology and projections? I mean, think about being a young artist where, you know, you know at dark on Thursday your art is going to be projected

all over this park. That's cool. I mean, and that's something that that, you know, the technology is there. And this could also be a real showcase for what you know, what is the next generation of civic space?

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a developer for developers.com. Again, that's Northspire.com. Now back to the show. It's a good question. Thankfully, you're not doing the picnic thing.

Where's just some grass and I mean there's there's an opportunity for picnics to elevated picnic.

It's not just a grass field and a couple tables.

But but the larger idea is how can this be one of the best free things to do in Atlanta? There's no turnstile, you don't have to buy anything. Right. So how do you have art and performance at a high quality that's free?

Yeah.

Very cool. What else should I ask about this before we go to our next? Um Man, I don't know. We're uh we're working on all cylinders. Sure. Um to make this thing a reality. Uh we're jazzed. Uh our leadership is motivated. Uh, property owners that we're talking to are psyched. Um, you know, unfortunately, when you show people a rendering like that, they're like, okay,

when's it going to be built? Um, because they think it's all ready to go. In fact, when we were moving dirt, they thought we were moving dirt to to construct this. Yeah. Rather than the, you know, this is only the beginning phase. Right. But we felt it was important to to get rid of the eyesore and and not have a fenced site in the middle of our district, and people are coming out and using it. It's great.

Mm-hmm.

Very cool.

All right.

I'm looking over my oh, here's one I I threw at you before we got going. In your time that you've been at Midtown Alliance, uh, you've seen a lot of projects, a lot of projects being pitched and those that have come to fruition. Were there any that should have happened? Maybe they just the timing didn't work out, something that you you wish had happened but didn't. You're talking about development projects? Yeah. Yeah.

Or it could be a, I don't know, it could be a streetscape. I mean, there have been a number of development projects that just didn't come to fruition. Um as I think about it, there's none that I really regret not seeing. Um the development industry uh does a good job of of putting

what is going to work in the right place. And you know, it's it's it's not our role to we don't have any control over private property, and it's not our role to say this needs to go here and that needs to go there. Um but what we do realize is the experience of a district is not defined by the lobby of a building. It's defined by

what happens outside that building when you when you exit and you start walking around. And that's where Midtown Alliance comes in. How do you create an exceptional district in the places between the buildings? And how do you um work to create not only great streetscapes, but where there's a reason to walk? Um and so um

roundabout answer to your question, are there things I would like to see that I'm haven't seen?

Sure.

Um I think one of our challenges, and it's not unique to Midtown, is just the retail experience. Um we don't have a lot of double-loaded retail, um like a Michigan Avenue, with, you know, that's always been a retail street that's, you know, always active. We've got pieces of retail in different places because the way Midtown has evolved, there's been a building here and a building

there. Uh the retail is is owned by hundreds of different uh owners, all with different priorities, um, some of which are, you know, not based in Atlanta and and the the ground floor is sort of a rounding error. But the the district is not defined by what happens the 30 floors above the street, it's what happens at the street. And so, you know, with online retail and brick and mortar, it's challenged.

You know, I love the fact we got a a a Whole Foods market and and uh you know other things that are neighborhood serving. We got a lot of food in Bev. Um the next challenge is how do you fill in with more neighborhood serving things? They like cotenancies, and um that's been a challenge.

Sure.

Particularly in the online getting back to curb management. I mean, stuff people buying is is coming in an Amazon truck. It is. Y'all could have put a Costco on this site. Yeah, we're thinking about a Bucky's. That's what we're gonna do here.

That's a good stop for people. Hey, come off the highway. Come come buy all your stuff. Um What else? We we talked about 15th Street Extension. How did that was just such a natural thing that needed to happen a long time ago, but it seemed to be a little bit more of a project. I think you'll hit some rock while you're yeah.

I mean, it was it was there's a rare opportunity in a dense urban district to reconnect the grid. Yeah. You know, and we had super blocks, but we had, you know, we needed a relief valve for 14th Street for the longest time. Aaron Powell I'm gonna pull it up just while you're talking. Sure. I mean, you know, Georgia Department of Transportation owned right-of-way for what was originally supposed to be a 15th Street bridge uh that was not

gonna happen. Yeah.

And um, so what this was a somebody owned this property and y'all had to cut it in half, or did you have to buy the whole property?

G DOT had a uh uh GDOT owned the right-of-way all the way to the interstate. And so we worked with our District 5 GDOT rep, and ultimately G DOT m gave us the right-of-way to be able to create the 15th Street Extension, which is wonderful. Did a great job with it. And so, you know, here we go. We uh

lot of different um things we could talk about here, but ultimately um we got a favorable contract with a with a with a great um great company that did a great job. We hit a lot of rock. Um and so took a little while to get the project done, but now it's open and functioning and people are using it, and it um, you know, it

it it reconnects the grid.

Are there any other reconnecting grid streets that are coming?

Aaron Powell Um not that I can name right now. I mean, we got our eye on other super blocks and where there are opportunities. They're just really, really hard. This one worked out, the stars aligned.

Yeah.

Um, and um GDOT was a was a great partner. The City of Atlanta was a great partner, and we got it done. Yeah.

It is uh a sneaky access. Before even the street, we would talk about from an office leasing standpoint. There's always some complaint about, oh well, you know, how is it getting back to the highway from these buildings? Right. But uh the one that packs the best punch, prom tower here and our cousin's friends that are gonna be listening, they'll love this commercial. They're almost leased at both of these buildings, but the 15th. So

this parking deck, you can zip on to 14th and you can punch out to 15th. Right. And I don't know if there's another there's not another parking situation that gives you that kind of flow, but um, you can really sneak out quick if you're you're trying to avoid any of that rush hour traffic. But 14th, I mean it gets blocked up pretty good. You know, trying to get home. Do you have any plans to fix that? Or I don't know how you would fix that.

I mean, you know, interestingly in urban environments or not interestingly, but obviously you can't expand capacity. There's very few opportunities. We're not going to widen streets, you know, because we've got buildings in the way. And what we're really trying to do is optimize. And so I mentioned, you know, multimodal lanes. We want to give people more opportunities to get around that don't have to get in a car. Uh we want to make sure that paths to transit are

things people would want to want to do. And then that we uh we make those paths, you know, to to transit um um enticing. Um so we're taking a small percentage of the lane miles and and creating a connected network of multimodal lanes, get bikes off the sidewalks to improve that pedestrian experience as well. Umpportunistic things like

the 15th Street Extension, probably not another one in our future anytime soon. Um we'll do a a mid-block crossing at 14th Street around where the Four Seasons is to uh safely get people across. It's a pretty fast corridor. It is, that it's makes a lot of sense. 1,300 feet between Peachtree and West Peachtree on

14th Street is kind of a speedway when when cars are are uh free-flowing. Right. Um, you know, so traffic calming is is another thing. You know, we're squaring off intersections, taking slip lanes that allowed, you know, vehicles to quickly, you know, make a right uh at a high rate of speed, but squaring those off. You know, no turn on red.

I mean, you could encapsulate our entire work plan in four words as it comes to what we're trying to do. Happy people on foot. Because if you capture happy people on foot, you've unlocked the urban experience that people want to have.

Or the other four words, slow slow down the cars.

Which is part of being a happy person on foot. Yes. I got it. I I mean I think y'all are doing a great job.

I'd I have a my my little life hack, I keep a scooter in the trunk of my car, and anytime I have a meeting in Midtown, I just jump in the scooter and zip around. Um it's a little easier than get in the car and finding another parking spot. Yeah, I got a one-wheel. Do you? Yeah. So there's there's two. One wheel is the that's the kind of skateboarding. What are what are the ones

that go like 40 miles away?

I don't remember what you call them. With the full full head helmet, yeah, that are going faster than cars. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember what those are, a univheel or something like that. Yeah. I don't have the guts for that.

Death on wheels.

Yeah.

I don't know what happens if you hit a bump or something, but I'd I wouldn't go that fast on a single wheel.

Me either.

Yeah.

But one one go as fast as my one wheel anymore either after a broken pelvis and broken shoulder. So slowed things down a bit.

I'm surprised you still so what that was from the one wheel. Okay. And you still you still do it. Um all right. What what other questions I have for you? Uh can I ask you about Campineal?

Or what's the latest there? Um No latest that I know of, other than the City uh um working with a developer. Developers trying to get the project moving. Um allegations that there were things falling off the building the city investigated earlier this week and determined there was

nothing uh falling off the building. And um so we're in a holding pattern, I guess you'd say. No, we we don't control private development. Right. And um You know, that's between the city and the developer. I mean that you c to keep a building

permit, you have to do just a rather minimal amount of stuff every 180 days, and your permit stays valid. So it keeps it keeps it going.

With that though, you're you do have some Do you all have influence on the sidewalks and the pedestrian experience?

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. You know, influence is an interesting word. Um we're not a regulatory entity. Think of us as a nonprofit that voluntarily undertakes a lot of stuff. You know, we do things under contract with the city, um we've got you know, which which m gives us contractual responsibility to deliver projects, in some cases to maintain aspects of those projects afterwards. But um and we you know we

staff a development review committee, which I think is a good thing because projects come through and and we've got a great committee of people that are thoughtful that help think about what's worked in Midtown and what these design teams may not have thought about or how to optimize their projects. So that's good. Um that's an influential role, I think, for us because it adds value to everybody that participates. Um, but we don't issue

citations. We uh we just do our part uh to create a great urban place and we fix things when we see things need to be fixed, or get permits, or ask permission, or cajole private property owners to do what they need to do. Um, but there are limits to that influence. You help progress happen.

We try. Encourage it. Yeah. Very cool. Sumbbelt developers is brought to you by Northspire, built by a developer for developers. Visit Norspire.com. Again, that's Northspire.com. Now back to the show. Uh let me see. Let me see. What else? What else do we have? We got infrastructure projects. I love that one of our interns had a a question.

Let's say somebody writes Midtown Alliance a billion dollar check. What do you do with that check?

Um Well, that would be a really nice challenge, wouldn't it?

Well, our park is fully funded at that point. Um, so check the box there. Um beyond that, I think we'd look in be looking for other opportunities to create some public spaces in other places of Midtown. Um I think we might try our hand at how

to seed different retail experiences to demonstrate that different things could work in different places. Um that would be an interesting exercise, I think, working with the private sector to maybe take some of the risk out of some projects and and bring some tenants in. And and you know, we got a lot of rooftops, as mentioned. We have a lot of new

people that are living in Midtown, and that's a they support retail. And so can we find some places that uh that would really make retail the kind of retail we'd we want to see that's gonna, you know, add value to the urban experience. We've got great stuff now. Yeah. I just think you walk around in other cities and then I keep telling myself, gee, I wish we had that and I wish we had that.

There's this kind of commerce corridor or something where you can you can buy more than just food and bev that's in it.

Yeah. But then you also have to think what's the next generation of soft goods retail? Is it is it really just a place where you try on, get your size, and then order it online, go pick it up?

Yeah. We've had some retail people come through here and Herb Ames, I'll give him a call out. He's the guy doing that Lula Hills project, North DeCab Mall, they leveled it out. Um, he was talking about their numbers, they find whenever you set up a uh brick and mortar retail shop, let's take I don't know, Lululemon, for example. So you set up a a shop and then all of a sudden the the online sales benefits

in that area. Um so I maybe they're a bad example because of what they just closed down their shop on in West Midtown, but um but you get the the theory. It's more of a let's say like a billboard for them. So their their sales do happen in person, but it it benefits their kind of geo on their on their side. Yeah. So um is the Midtown Connector

Park still alive? The one Dan Cathy was promoting?

Um no. Uh they did a lot of planning work, um, really fine work. Um I think uh that connector park is uh a matter of when and not if. Because I think in any city, urban district that's growing like we are, yeah, uh ultimately

spaces over freeways are gonna get utilized. They tend to be very expensive projects, they're very uh involved, you get federal highways involved, you know, because you're working over active interstates, they're complicated. So um there's nothing actively happening to advance that right now. But I applaud Dan just thinking as a visionary,

you know, and putting a team together that really thought about how this could work. Right.

It was funny, there was there was a season there where you had press releases about the Stitch, Midtown Connector, and then Buckheads Park. We had like three mega highway capping parks going all running with their own BR campaign. Um well see, I I wish them all well. I I think the Stitch would be incredible. And um I'm not sure what the latest on the Buckhead park is, but um But yeah, okay.

That's good. Thanks for sharing that. Um major trend from happening, what would it be? Uh say in development.

I was gonna say vehicles parking, blocking travel lanes on the curb. On the curb? Yeah. I mean or in the curb lane. Yeah, yeah. And then I mean they're they're basically taking what is vehicular capacity that's bought and paid for by taxpayers and um negating it by parking their vehicle there. So if I could wave my magic wand, I

would put enforcement cameras on every block and they'd be automatically ticketing, and that wouldn't happen anymore. It used to not happen. I mean, it's really a trend that has grown a lot in the last five years. Yeah. And uh it's getting worse. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Has City Council raised anyway. I think it's it's a it's a it's a topic of discussion. I think the challenge is until you've got automated enforcement, you're

never going to have the um the humans and the uniformed police officers that are sworn to write tickets to do this. You could privatize, you know, um vendors potentially to do it, but that's still a lot of humans, you know. Yeah. Maybe you'd have to have them on every block. It is. It's total whack-a-mole. Yeah.

So, you know, we're not able to do that through current state law, so that's a that's an opportunity.

Okay. Um, Matt Westmoreland, if you're listening, he's a fan of the podcast. You should raise that in your next city council meeting, please. Um Well, Kevin, what what else should I ask you about Midtown?

Midtown. I don't know. I'll just think here. I think so. What what do we mean, guys?

Oh, I got I got this one. This is the uh what is a decision that you've made as a as a CEO.

That you knew people were gonna be unhappy though, but you believed it was the right move. I can't think of an example of that.

I'd say in our organization, we make decisions collaboratively with our leadership, uh, both our board leadership and our organizational leadership. And we move forward when there's consensus. And so I haven't I can't point to something that that caused a

lot of consternation. And it's it's never easy running a nonprofit that has so many moving parts and so many constituents uh that all, you know, want to see something, or in some cases are poking you with a stick. Um so I think, you know, the longer I'm at this role, the more I think my job is to surround myself with smart,

passionate people that I love to work with and keep them happy. So my job is to, is to is to solve problems, is to to to ensure that, you know, there's a good people feel like they're professionally developing, they're motivated, they're being uh, you know, challenged in good ways.

And um if you got that, everything else works its way out. I think you're right. Yeah. Well Kevin, this has been awesome. Good. Appreciate you coming down. Thank you for having me.

Do you have anything you want to shout out to the any any new band shows coming up?

No, you know, uh you'd think that I mean some working band that's on tour all the time. I'm not. We we don't play very often. Um we all live in different cities. One's in Asheville, one's in upstate New York, one's in Phoenix, Mexico. Um so we get together and play benefits, basically. We we started playing when I was in law school, and other players were in med school at Emory.

Um, and that was a long time ago. And then we went dormant for a long time and then got back together. Um tragically, our lead guitarist was killed on his bike in 2018. And so every show that we've done since then has been a benefit for cycling safety. So the monies that we raise, and we've raised a couple hundred thousand dollars, has gone towards cycling safety.

Aaron Powell So you do these concerts and benefit of just various nonprofit. You'll take the proceeds and then do the right nonprofit. That's right. Very cool. Kevin, thank you. Thank you, Tim. Thanks for thanks for your work. We're excited to check out the park in a couple years. Well, check it out today. It's open. Well, I know, but like the you know, it's just the beginning. Just the beginning. All right. Thanks, Ben. All right. Thanks, y'all, for listening to another episode. Uh we've got more to come this season. Uh

stay tuned.