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Gwinnett getting a skyline?


Lady Celeste

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I feel that it is time that metro Atlanta considers the impact that Gwinnett is having on the area. As more people file into Gwinnett, development is becoming more concentrated in certain parts of the county. At 700,000 people, the county is fastly becoming Georgia's most populated county. There are thousands of acres of land yet to be developmed but the county's self run public transportation system is minimal at best. Should the brakes be put on development in Gwinnett or should this growth be the catalyst for regional cooperation on public transportation? Rail is needed in conjunction with GCT (Gwinnett County Transist).

Will this amazing growth force the citizens of Gwinnett to consider linking up with MARTA? Will it force GRTA to take over to offer seemless opertions between the two systems? As Gwinnett considers it's future....which obviously will include denser development...it will have to be proactive. While development fills the county coffers with tax revenue, it will also make apparent the lack of infrastructure and vision for a healthy growing powerhouse.

That's my commentary. Please feel free to discuss, either positives or negatives of the amazing growth of Gwinnett County. Will Gwinnett further exacerbate sprawl in Metro Atlanta or is this an attempt by the county to control growth while preserving greenspace? Will this growth and thousands of future residents hurt Gwinnetts transit system or help it?

Below is a posting I was going to post in Metro Atlanta Development thread but within the last four days I have read of a few major developments announced in Gwinnett County/ Now we have heights being discussed in a suburban county. I felt that such development warrants discussion.

25 Story condo buildings in Gwinnett, can you imagine?

Close your eyes and imagine you are zipping down I-85. You look to your right and you see a cluster of buildings between 17 and 25 stories tall. You think to yourself, "wow, have we made it to Buckhead already?" You check you navigation system only to find that you are at the Sugarloaf Pkwy exit. Sounds wierd....well not if the Gwinnett County Commission have their way.

Read here:

Lofty condos may be coming.

From the article:

A proposal to allow high-rise residential condominiums is winding through the county planning department. Apartment buildings up to 25 stories tall may be permitted in stand-alone high-rise residential zones or as part of mixed-use zones combining condos with offices and retail shops.

The Gwinnett County Commission has been looking for ways to promote mixed-use development, and planners have hoped for better-defined regulations on what's allowed.

The new rules would permit high-rises and mixed-use developments near selected areas around the Mall of Georgia, Gwinnett Place mall, the Sugarloaf area and Jimmy Carter near I-85 and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

This shall be interesting to see how long it will be before the first highrise sprouts from the ground.

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Well...we all know how the people in Lawrenceville feel about Atlanta and the rest of the metro.

I might like the idea a bit more if transit was a little more extensive.

How do the People in Lawrenceville feel?

sounds like a good idea. Something had to be done in Gwinnett County to keep the county from becoming a hopeless, sprawling mess before it was too late!

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How do the People in Lawrenceville feel?

Ever heard of the phrase "biting the hand that feeds you"?

Just imagine the "hand" being Atlanta.

You see, they'd like to surp Atlanta in importance.

Other than that, I agree with your post. :) Just remember they need transit.

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I'm in the camp that believes increasing densinty does not have a direct impact on decreasing sprawl. High density sprawl does exist - Los Angeles.

But I'm still mixed in my opinions, in one sense I feel 'why not - Gwinnett is nearly hopeless anyways' but in another sense I feel it will worsen congestion, resources & what ever type of livability exists in Gwinnett.

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Amen teshadoh. I don't like the proposal. They need to focus on in-fill development, instead. Atlanta has the potential to reverse the wrong that it has done by sprawling practically to Chatanooga on 75 and near Lawrencveille and beyond on 85N.

They need desperately to focus on a regional goal in reducing this type of development. It is imperative for not only us typing on UP, but for our kids and our Grandchildren.

My question is "WHERE DOES IT END????"

Heck if Gwinnett is going to go verticle, then we will see bordering counties try to pull off the same thing just for the tax money.

It is a huge strain on resources and has a tremendous impact on our quality of life.

I am already a bit upset with some of Charlotte's proposals. I do not like development that is basically a pocket of density surrounded by an uncontrolled sea of sprawl. Just my two cents.

A2

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^Sadly, it's every county (and city in some cases) for itself in Metro Atlanta.

I think someone else here said that tall tower do not make the city. (DC, Paris...anyone?)

I think Gwinnett's doing this just as a way of giving Atlanta the finger and saying "HA! We don't need you!" Of course, they should also remember not to bite the hand that feeds them, even though they may deny it ever "fed" them anything.

Fine, let Gwinnett screw itself out of livability.

A2, I very much agree with your post.

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Having driven through Gwinnett County on I-85 and on one of those roads named for a bridge (there are a few of those in metro ATL), I couldn't really gather a sense of place.

Are these condo buildings to be built near the interstate just for the sake of being seen, or somewhere within "inner" Lawrenceville? Is this a true attempt at giving this place some semblence of urbanity (within a suburban county, granted) or, as ironchapman said, Gwinnett's way of giving Atlanta the finger?

Gosh, I'm really dreading the day that Gwinnett's population starts spilling over into Barrow, as eastern Gwinnett still has a good bit of land to be developed (it's quite evident driving on I-85 north into Atlanta). I'm sure by that time, Greenville's sprawl will begin creeping west and we'll have the beginning of the end.

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I think in the end we are seriously going to have one massive megaloplis on 85N from Atlanta to Greenville/Spartanburg, to Charlotte. It just is unstoppable IMO.

By the way...

"Gwinnett is where success lives" :P

(at least that is what their H2O tower claims)

A2

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I'm in the camp that believes increasing densinty does not have a direct impact on decreasing sprawl. High density sprawl does exist - Los Angeles.

But I'm still mixed in my opinions, in one sense I feel 'why not - Gwinnett is nearly hopeless anyways' but in another sense I feel it will worsen congestion, resources & what ever type of livability exists in Gwinnett.

Exactly....someone chosing to live in a high-rise in Gwinnett is chosing not to live in a high-rise in an area that has infrastructure of handling the density. Now if someone lives there because they work close by, then I coudl see the benefit...but it appears that at three of these zones are located along highly commercial corridors that are already over-loaded with traffic, and few jobs that would pay enough to for someone to live in a high-rise.

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Exactly....someone chosing to live in a high-rise in Gwinnett is chosing not to live in a high-rise in an area that has infrastructure of handling the density. Now if someone lives there because they work close by, then I coudl see the benefit...but it appears that at three of these zones are located along highly commercial corridors that are already over-loaded with traffic, and few jobs that would pay enough to for someone to live in a high-rise.

Thats not true. Gwinnett has a sizable employment base and enough of them are high paying to fill a high rise. The question is if enough people want this type of housing in this area.

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I can see highrise condos at Jimmy Carter or...hell even Sugarloaf. Those areas already have sizeable office buildings and Sugarloaf is going to be adding millions more in the next few years. However, Mall of Georgia...and worse...Hamilton Mill? I mean Hamilton Mill wasnt even a place until about 4 years ago. Thats just crazy and way too far out!

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I think in the end we are seriously going to have one massive megaloplis on 85N from Atlanta to Greenville/Spartanburg, to Charlotte. It just is unstoppable IMO.

I think you're right. All three of these areas have some serious momentum going on right now, and I think the emergence of the I-85 Sprawlopolis is inevitable.

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  • 2 months later...

County to allow high-rise condos.

The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to allow high-rise residential condominiums in heavily developed areas.

From the article:

The new zoning rules allow condominiums up to 25 stories to be built in designated areas around Gwinnett Place mall, the Mall of Georgia, the Sugarloaf area and a wide strip along Jimmy Carter Boulevard between Peachtree Industrial Parkway and I-85.

The 3-2 vote for high-rises split over density restrictions. The board rejected a proposal from Commissioner Lorraine Green to restrict the number of units per acre. Both Green and Commissioner Mike Beaudreau voted for the restrictions. When that proposal failed, Green and Beaudreau voted against the high-rises. The measure passed without any density restrictions for high-rise residential zoning. Kevin Kenerly, Bert Nasuti and Charles Bannister voted in favor.

Much of the area designated for high-rises is in Green's district. Developers are considering five or six high-rise projects in her district, and have been waiting for the new rules before submitting proposals, she said.

Well I guess we will now see a mini-skyline forming around the I-85/GA 316 intersection now.

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wow. You know Atlanta really is forming a lot like LA. The main skyline here continues to grow and mini skylines are popping up everywhere. I think eventually all these skylines wil just loosely grow together and The Atlanta skyline will be all over the perimeter and outside of it. This is very similar to the way LA is.

This probably won't help transit, which is unfortunate. I guess we can just give up on trying to make Atlanta like NYC of Chicago. IMO, I think we should use other cities as examples of how we want to develop ATL, but I don't think we should try to make it just like them. Atlanta is going to grow in its own way this is completely unique to Atlanta; it already has.

Whoa, that was quite a tangent. Sorry, but My mind just started flowing.

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They're out of room in Gwinnett -- there's no place to go but up! :lol:

I guess we can just give up on trying to make Atlanta like NYC of Chicago. IMO, I think we should use other cities as examples of how we want to develop ATL, but I don't think we should try to make it just like them. Atlanta is going to grow in its own way this is completely unique to Atlanta; it already has.

Seriously, there's no question about that. I commented on this in the John Portman thread -- back in the 60's people tended to view the model of urbanism as a dense central city full of skyscrapers. The standards were places like New York, Boston, Philly, etc. Many newer cities tried to emulate that, largely, in my opinion, to show that they had arrived in the big leagues.

But the social, economic, transportation and geographic forces that drove those older cities simply don't exist in the newer Sunbelt cities. That doesn't mean they can't be great in their own right. New York didn't have to duplicate London or Paris, and it doesn't help Atlanta to measure itself against standards that will never really obtain here.

Cities like Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles present a very different set of challenges but they can also provide a terrific urban experience. I don't think that has to be defined in terms of older cities. We can learn from them, but they don't have to be treated as the be all and end all.

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At this moment, I am visiting a friend of mine who lives in Gwinnet in the apartment complex which is part of Global Forum, Gwinnett's first mixed-use development according to the sign (Buford Hwy). I'm quite surprised that this is the first mixed-use development EVER in Gwinnett. As of now, the apartment component is the only part of the development complete.

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We should have had this conversation a couple of years ago. Gwinett is so far gone I don't know if it can ever be retro-fitted into a sustainable model of development. There may be pockets here and there, but too few and far between to ever link them up via transit. IMO Gwinett should be a cautionary tale of letting an ego maniac run your county...yes Wayne Hill, I'm talking to you.

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We should have had this conversation a couple of years ago. Gwinett is so far gone I don't know if it can ever be retro-fitted into a sustainable model of development. There may be pockets here and there, but too few and far between to ever link them up via transit. IMO Gwinett should be a cautionary tale of letting an ego maniac run your county...yes Wayne Hill, I'm talking to you.

I think I feel the same way. But hey, you know that Gwinnett is great and success lives in Gwinnett. :thumbsup:

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Looks like the first residential highrises could be at Gwinnett mall which is struggling since the other two malls in the county opened.

"George Thorndyke, a Gwinnett County developer, expects to close deals today to acquire about 50 acres of land for a mixed-use project near Gwinnett Place mall.

His project, which will cost from $600 million to $1 billion, will mix high-rise residential condominiums with offices and shopping, much like Atlantic Station, he said. Thorndyke expects to unveil plans for the development formally on Tuesday."

Atlantic Station-style project planned near Gwinnett Place - AJC

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