See the accompanying video about the impending demolishing of a former residential building on 7th Street and how it relates to Midtown's architectural fabric.
7th Street Building to be Demolished
Members of the Midtown SPI-16 & SPI-17 Development Review Committee have expressed frustration over not being better equipped in preventing building owners from allowing Midtown structures to fall in disrepair.
Developers often intentionally and wilfully allow these beautiful buildings to waste away, fail to undertake any maintenance and choose not to put the buildings into ANY sort of active use. Then, after the buildings are in grave disrepair and the developers are ready to implement their real plan - demolition - they claim it is "too expensive" and "not financially feasible" to rehabilitate the very buildings that they had intentionally neglected. You'd be tempted to say penny smart, pound foolish and that it would have been cheaper to maintain these buildings all along, but it was always the developers' intent to skirt the preservation requirement by allowing the buildings to fall in on themselves, become an eyesore, gin up neighborhood complaints about "prostitutes" and "drug users", then plead poor mouth and whine about the exorbitant costs these "old buildings" require - all so that they can erect another unremarkable Coke bottle blue glass box.
Also, has anyone head that Starbucks will be demolished as well to make way for apartments - http://nickkahler.tumblr.com/post/37740627273 ?
I'm not sure how they could put in an apartment where the SBX is now given anything short of a very narrow highrise would have 10 stories in perpetual darkness of being just north of the Viewpoint deck. Residents would wind up w/ vitamin D deficiencies after a while. Given the constant comedy of people trying to maneuver the SBX lot, I'd venture there's not enough room to do a podium parking deck in that space so it'd have to either build up the Skyhouse deck further or repurpose that lot north of 7th. The original Viewpoint/Trilogy plans showed 3 towers but w/ the 3rd tower at the N/E corner along Juniper/7th and parking filling in the space between 2 and 3. If they're going for a 3rd tower that'd be the location to put it. I actually wouldn't be against that given it'd probably create the single highest density residential block in the state regardless if there are 2,000 parking spaces included. It'd also leave less space for the deck to spread out and probably kickstart some more retail development.
You are right Atlanta will never be Boston or NYC. Those cities were built up in a completely different time in a completely different mannor. If you are a true Atlantan (by birth or by just living here) then you would want Atlanta to have it's own identity. And it's fully because those cities are tearing town old buildings all the time but because there are much more of them to go around there isn't an issue. I like living in a modern city. I don't want to go around a see a bunch of old renovated buildings. You want the new on the inside but have the city look old from the outside? I live seeing new modern towers and buildings. I like my new city. If those that were building NYC and Boston were into "preserving history" you wouldn't have those cites the way they are today. You don't think they had to tear down areas to rebuild. Look at the WTC site; that was a bunch of low rise older buildings that they tore down to create that site for the twin towers. Look at Boston when they had to tear down hundreds of buildings for the elevated highway they once had downtown. You don't hear anyone talking about preservation. Now Boston has a completely new interstate and with taking the elevated interstate down can now rebuild those areas. And we all know why there is being a new WTC built. Point is every city tears down and starts over so we don't need to keep every old building just because it was built in the 1930s and 40s. That's not character.