A joint venture of the Massachusetts Port Authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is seeking expressions of interest in potential development at the Anderson Regional Transportation Center, located at 100 Atlantic Ave. in Woburn. The City of Woburn has advanced planning and economic development efforts in the surrounding area, setting the stage for a potential opportunity at the RTC.

“As the JV contemplates how to best accommodate the growth of transportation services at the Anderson
RTC, there may be potential for development to co-exist with, and even enhance, operations at the facility,” according to a statement from the three agencies. They’re seeking to better understand the site’s development potential, gauge market demand and evaluate the feasibility of balancing current and future transportation needs with new development.

Responses to the Request for Interest are due by April 30.

Photo credit: BMRR.

The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners rezoned land surrounding the Indian Creek station, the final stop on the Blue Line located off Durham Road and adjacent to Interstate 285. The approval will allow for a dense makeover of the 64-acre site.

The Indian Creek plan includes a 20,000-square-foot grocery store, 20,000-square-foot community center, 1,600 apartments, 300,000 square feet of office space, 2,500 square feet of food and beverage space, 4 acres of parks and green space and a 45,000-square-foot bus transfer facility.

The proposal is part of MARTA’s broader strategy to boost ridership by placing people on the doorstep to transit. The agency tends to provide land to developers through ground leases, supplying MARTA with an additional revenue source and allowing it to retain control over what takes shape around its stations.

MARTA plans to issue a request for proposals later this year to identify a development partner for the first phase of the project.

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. and Invest Atlanta have approved the selection of Culdesac, Inc. in partnership with Urban Oasis Development, to be the developers of the Murphy Crossing mixed-use redevelopment project in Atlanta’s Oakland City neighborhood and adjacent to Adair Park and Capitol View. The anticipated revitalization of the 20-acre site will create a high-density, transit-oriented community with long-term, affordable housing, affordable commercial spaces and new amenities adjacent to BeltLine’s Westside trail.

As part of a public private partnership, the development will deliver approximately 1,100 new housing units, including affordable housing offerings.

Of the new housing units, 30% of the rental product will be classified as affordable, based on income level. Culdesac also intends to market a portion of the retail and light industrial spaces at an affordable rate to small businesses in the area.

The Murphy Crossing site is adjacent to the BeltLine’s Westside Trail and in close proximity to the Oakland City and West End MARTA stations.

The field in the race for the Gwinnett County Commission chairmanship seat this November has been narrowed to two candidates who offer starkly different paths for the future of one of Georgia’s most populous counties.

Courtesy of Nicole Love Hendrickson

Incoming Gwinnett County Commission Chair Nicole Love Hendrickson says it’s time to take another look at proposed transportation plans.

Earlier this month, Nicole Love Hendrickson secured the Democratic nomination for the Gwinnett commission chairmanship after her opponent, Lee Thompson, ceded the race despite a pending runoff. David Post secured the Republican nomination in the primary last month.

Now the two will face off for the seat that Charlotte Nash has held since a 2011 special election, chairing a body that has been controlled by Republicans since former Chairman Lillian Webb’s election in 1985.

In interviews with Bisnow, Post and Hendrickson offered insights into their views on various growth and development issues in Gwinnett, which is on track to become the state’s most populous county, with 1.5 million residents projected by 2040.

Post said he was opposed to approving additional residential density, while Hendrickson said she sees it as a way to help improve the county’s housing affordability. 

“If you talk to the people in Gwinnett County, I think you’re going to find out they feel there are enough apartments,” Post said. “There is a point where it not only affects traffic but it also affects the quality of life and the quality of the county.”

Hendrickson, who until recently was Gwinnett’s community outreach director, sees a place for density in the form of mixed-use projects for more affordable housing stock.

“I’m 100% for mixed-use development and also that it’s affordable, but not at the expense of eliminating green space,” she said. “We’re going to have to start building up, and we’re going to have to start building more, denser living spaces.”

Bisnow

Outgoing Gwinnett County Commission Chair Charlotte Nash.

The two candidates also differed on how the county should respond to the coronavirus pandemic, especially given that Gwinnett has been one of the hardest-hit counties in the state, with nearly 12,000 total cases and at least 185 deaths, according to the state Department of Public Health. Post said businesses need to be left to decide how best to handle social distancing and other anti-pandemic efforts.

“I think some of the media has overblown the virus. Everybody has different numbers,” Post said. “People have said, ‘Oh, the restaurants need to be closed but the liquor stores need to be open.’ I don’t know. We need to develop a priority list, if that is our responsibility. Or is it the responsibility of the business owners? Business owners need to make decisions on whether they can or are willing to work under certain restrictions.”

But with new coronavirus cases on the rise, Hendrickson said the commission needs to consider requiring more residents and businesses to prevent the spread, including encouraging residents to wear face masks and imposing penalties on businesses that don’t enforce social distancing measures.

“It’s unacceptable that Gwinnett County is leading the state in coronavirus cases, and I do not believe it’s because more people are getting tested. The spikes are due to behavior,” Hendrickson said. “While I realize that this is all about self-responsibility, I also think there are things the government can do to get the message out with the intention to make sure our residents are safe and healthy. There will be no economy if we can’t get [the pandemic] under control, basically. You can never be too cautious with something that is killing people.”

The two greatly differed on MARTA’s proposed expansion into the county. Hendrickson supported the plan that would raise local sales taxes to extend heavy rail from MARTA’s existing system to a new station created at the OFS facility off Jimmy Carter Boulevard. Hendrickson said the lack of mass transit has been a hindrance to Gwinnett’s economic development.

“What company would want to come into the county and their workforce can’t even get in because of traffic?” she said. “Mobility is very key to attracting businesses here, and MARTA is the way to do that.”

Gwinnett voters previously rejected MARTA’s expansion into the county, including in 2019, when a failed referendum would have added 1.5 cents to the sales tax to fund it. County officials nonetheless are pushing for another ballot initiative in the November election.

The commission last month approved a transit plan that would include heavy rail and a rapid bus system operated by MARTA. The commission has until the end of July to approve the ballot measure for voters in November.

But unlike Hendrickson, Post — a career corporate security and productivity consultant — is wholly against MARTA heavy rail expansion into the county. Officials estimate a cost of $200M to $300M per mile to expand heavy rail into the county.

“It’s too expensive. We’re not in a financial position to have our kids or grandkids to pay for it,” Post said, adding that MARTA doesn’t generate any profit.

MARTA, the eighth-largest public transit system in the country by ridership, has run a balanced budget for nine consecutive years.

“There is not a transit system anywhere that I know of that is profitable. It doesn’t make sense to me. And I don’t think it makes sense to the citizens, either,” he said.

Bisnow

Gwinnett Place Mall in suburban Atlanta was one of the sites where Stranger Things’ third season was filmed.

But Post and Hendrickson did not disagree on all issues central to Gwinnett’s commercial real estate industry. They both said the use of eminent domain to force the owner of the Gwinnett Place Mall to sell should be a last resort.

“Once all other avenues are exhausted,  and I don’t know that they have been … then [eminent domain] would be the likely option,” Post said. “I am not sure what options the board has looked at, but, in my communications with the [Gwinnett Community Improvement District] there has been very little, if anything, done. There are options for the mall, and I would be garnering cooperation in order to get something started.”

Eminent domain has a long tradition in the United States, where public entities are able to compel private landowners to sell for a project that is deemed in the public good. Often those are major infrastructure projects, such as new or widened roads or new government facilities and sports stadiums. But some municipalities nationwide have sought to use eminent domain to force the redevelopment of ailing malls and retail centers in their jurisdictions.

Las Vegas-based Moonbeam Capital purchased the main, 562K SF enclosed retail portion of the 1.3M SF mall from foreclosure in 2013, and despite numerous promises for a grand redevelopment, its tenure as owner has been met with frustration from local business groups like the Gwinnett Place CID and Partnership Gwinnett.

The most recent example of public lament over the mall’s stewardship came from Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District Chairman Leo Wiener during a June 30 Bisnow webinar, when he highlighted how Gwinnett Place Mall dropped from a peak taxable value of more than $100M to now roughly $10M.

“The current owner clearly has demonstrated they don’t have any interest in redeveloping the mall, never had an interest, not going to have an interest,” said Wiener, who also is the retail president of Ackerman & Co. “I don’t see why eminent domain isn’t on the board. We need to have that blowing-up dynamite party, in which the whole thing implodes and something better comes about.”

Hendrickson expressed skepticism that eminent domain would be a prudent choice of action, worried that its use would deter other companies from doing business in the county in the future.

“That one is a tricky one,” Hendrickson said. “Because they still are property owners and do we want to set a precedent to do that?”

“I think we need to work with Moonbeam, and I think we need to find a way to collaborate on what we will do with that space,” she added. “I don’t want to commit to using eminent domain to get them out of there.”

In response to a follow-up email from Bisnow, Hendrickson said she is open to a number of other efforts to persuade Moonbeam to either redevelop or sell the mall of its own volition, including prohibiting Moonbeam from further using the mall as a film and television site (the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things was largely filmed in the mall), extending redevelopment overlay district zoning ordinances to cover the mall property, strengthening code enforcement policies and holding Moonbeam to a higher standard of operation.

“If they [Moonbeam] don’t comply, then we would essentially have some basis for compliance or having them moved out or shut down,” she said.