Revitalizing Southeastern Communities Atlanta, GA Turns Dixisteel Into Atlantic Station 2004 Phoenix Award Winner With a population that has doubled since 1980 and accounts for more than half of Georgia's residents, the Atlanta metropolitan area is the fastest growing city in the Southeast. Atlanta is also the least dense urbanized area of the top 15 metropolitan areas in America, characterized by sprawling, low density patterns of development and traffic congestion that is among the worst in the country. With an expected increase in population by an additional 2.5 million people in the next 25 years, the sprawling development patterns must be addressed to ensure a sustainable future. While the closure of the Atlantic Steel Mill in 1998 after nearly a century of producing "Dixisteel" cost the area thousands of jobs, it also presented a tremendous opportunity. The location of the 138- acre site in midtown Atlanta and in close proximity to major transportation and transit routes made the site a prime location for a new smart growth urban development project. Today, the Atlantic Station community is a model of smart growth that provides its residents with multiple options to "live, work, and play" all within walking distance. 1930's Aerial Photo Jacoby Development Inc. acquired the property in 1997 with hopes to revitalize and redevelop the 138-acre site. AIG Environmental provided cost overrun insurance for the remediation of the land and in 1999 AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp. became a co-developer and investor. Together, Jacoby and AIG Global Real Estate proposed a 12-million-square-foot, mixed-use redevelopment plan for the Midtown Atlanta site. However, the site was separated from the east side of midtown Atlanta and the MARTA transit line by a major highway. Before the redevelopment move forward the 17th Street Bridge and interstate ramps had to be built to provide sufficient access to the site via automobile and public transit. Unfortunately, because Atlanta was out of compliance with federal transportation conformity requirements, the state was not allowed to use federal funds to add to its highway system nor construct transportation projects that require federal approval even if they were not federally funded. The EPA entered into a Project XL agreement with the developers, to address the ban on transportation infrastructure. Project XL , "excellence and Leadership", is a program that "allows states and local governments, businesses and federal facilities to develop with EPA innovative strategies to test better cost-effective ways of achieving environmental and public health protection." Under the agreement, development of the site would have to include interchanges and bridges for cars, pedestrians, bicycles, and buses to serve as essential links to Atlanta's mass transit system, MARTA. The goal of the agreement was to create a connection between the Atlantic Station community and public transportation to reduce growth of traffic in Atlanta and its negative impacts on air and water quality. ------- The next hurdle was cleaning up the site. The developers partnered with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division (EPD) to develop a $ 10-million plan to remediate the site's extensive contamination. The developers conducted a risk-based site assessment to determine the level of cleanup needed at the site, which included: the removal of more than 9,000 truckloads of impacted soils; construction of erosion/stormwater controls and barriers to prevent exposure to soil that remained on-site; surface water runoff controls; prevention of groundwater contamination at other sites; and creating institutional controls to prevent future exposure to contamination. Remediation of the former Atlanta Steel mill site was finished in December 2001 when the State issued a "no further action" letter. In 2000, construction began. The plan for the site calls for it to be divided into three areas, the District, the Commons, and the Village. The District, a portion of which opened in March 2004, will feature one million square feet of open air retail and entertainment, six million square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of loft office space, and 200 two story loft apartments above retail shops and restaurants. The Commons will be primarily residential with a mix of apartment buildings, and low-rise condominiums built around a new park and fountained lake, all within walking distance of the retail and office space located in the District. The Village will consist of retail shops and cafes with residential units above. To help defray the costs of infrastructure improvements to prepare the site for the redevelopment, the City of Atlanta approved the Atlantic Steel Tax Allocation District (TAD), a tax increment financing overlay that will allow the property taxes generated by the redevelopment to be used for property improvements for the next 25 years. The TAD is expected to generate $35 million per year and will allow the developers of the site to sell bonds to cover additional property improvement costs. In July 2004, Atlantic Station received a green building certification for an office tower by the U.S. Green Building Council. Atlantic Station's official Grand Opening was held in October 2005. In addition to cleaning up a contaminated site, the reuse of this urban infill property and integration of other "smart growth" tools into the design of the Atlantic Station community will help improve air and water quality for all of metropolitan Atlanta. An EPA analysis of the transportation and air emissions impacts of the project compared to a similar development in an outlying Greenfield area found that the Atlantic Station redevelopment will result in 34 percent fewer vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) and up to 45 percent fewer NOx emissions. By using smart growth tools to revitalize this large urban brownfield site, Atlanta is investing in a sustainable future for the metropolitan region. Website: 2005 Aerial Photo www.atlanticstation.com ------- Revitalizing Southeastern Communities A Brownfields Toolkit Regional Coalition Seeks to Channel New Development to Urban Corridor in Southeast Florida The Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership is a regional collaboration that aims to revitalize Southeast Florida's historic urban areas in an effort to lessen development pressure and urban sprawl in environmentally sensitive lands to the west of the Interstate 95 corridor which are critical to the Everglades ecosystem and the region's water supply. Focused on reducing market disincentives to infill development, promoting smart growth, and bringing economic activity back to neglected areas, this partnership is targeting the approximately 2,100 brownfields sites that dot the urban landscape. The remediation and sustainable reuse of these sites will assist in the protection and restoration of the Everglades' fragile ecosystem and could result in more than $6 billion in savings for the region over the next 25 years. Bringing together local, state, regional, and federal agencies with private sector, non-profit and community organizations, Eastward Ho! targets a I 15-mile coastal strip of Southeastern Florida. This corridor includes forty percent (5.2 million) of Florida's total population. It runs through Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach counties and includes the major downtowns of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. While the entire region is not characterized by poverty, it contains pockets of some of the most severe poverty in the country. More than 2 million people are expected to settle in the Eastward Ho! corridor over the next 15 to 20 years. This projected influx poses a significant threat to the nearby Everglades, which are rapidly shrinking as low density development continues to push westward. Such sprawling, automobile- dependent growth comes at a cost to the local economy, in addition to the environment. The state will face billion-dollar roadway projects in order to accommodate the population increase. In an effort to accommodate future population growth without further compromising or degrading the environment and economic sustainability of the region, the Eastward Ho! initiative focuses on funneling people back into the urban areas of Southeast Florida. The partnership is realizing this goal by providing technical assistance and funding to local governments, conducting research, undertaking demonstration projects, providing information to the public, and leading community workshops. A number of successful community redevelopment efforts have received assistance from the Eastward Ho! partnership. The Wynwood Brownfield Project is one such endeavor that has brought new life to Miami's blighted Wynwood neighborhood. Originally home to a laundry and dry cleaning facility, this five-acre property had significant legal and environmental problems. It had been the target of illegal dumping of a number of drums containing unknown material. Assessment of the site found detectable levels of petroleum compounds and groundwater contaminated with "bunker C" fuel oil. In addition to the environmental challenges, the property was tied up in a Nevada bankruptcy court, there was an IRS ------- lien against it, several years of back taxes were owed, and a creditor had a judgment lien in excess of $1 million. The successful revitalization of the Wynwood site is primarily a result of a strong partnership between government, private business, and the community. In 1996, the City of Miami received an EPA grant to assist in the redevelopment of the brownfield. Three years later the city acquired a Florida brownfields grant to assist with the assessment and remediation efforts. To resolve the legal and technical hurdles associated with the property and make the redevelopment financially feasible, Miami collaborated with the Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership, Atwater Capital Group, Congresswoman Carrie Meek, the Miami Brownfields Task Force, Miami Department of Real Estate & Economic Development, Miami- Dade County Oversight Committee, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and the Miami- Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management. Atwater acquired the site through bankruptcy court and signed the first "Brownfields Site Rehabilitation Agreement" under the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Act. Since the completion of the remediation, one parcel of the property has become a new MetroMix cement plant, providing 40 much-needed jobs for the neighborhood. The rest of the site has been sold to British developers and is slated to become live/work artist studios. Contact: Terry Manning South Florida Regional Planning Council 954-985-4416 terryman@sfrpc.com ------- |