Lindbergh redevelopment

[Guest donaltopablo]

This area was always kind of the "junky" side of Buckhead. But the transformation (based heavily on it's proximity to buckehad i'm sure) is going to make this a very hot part of town for some time. Lots of interesting developments. I hope the residential and walkable components continue to be the model for the area.

Lindbergh sector goes upscale fast

By WALTER WOODS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It's the last page of the Gold Club saga, and it signals a rewrite of the story of Buckhead's Lindbergh section.

The planned conversion of the Gold Club from a naughty stop for conventioneers to a tony condo tower will continue an upscale redevelopment for the sector, said Howard Shook, who represents the area on the Atlanta City Council.

Kim King and Wayne Mason's Piedmont Road development at the Gold Club site, called "Lindbergh Mixed Use Development" on the drawing board, will have 200 condo units and two stories of on-street retail, part of it set up for a possible drive-through doughnut shop.

King's condos next year will replace the storied adult club, once famous for erotic dancers, pro basketball stars and a metal pole that sold for $1,750. The low, gray Gold Club building could be torn down in the next several months.

Some other changes have already begun.

Sembler Co., a Florida retail developer, will raze the Lindbergh Plaza shopping center next year and replace it with 250 apartment units and more retail space than Phipps Plaza.

Lindbergh City Center, the mixed-use development anchored by the twin BellSouth towers, will also build condos and retail in the near future.

But the move toward more upscale development may cause some residents of the area who occupy less-pricey apartments to be displaced.

At the request of some apartment owners, the city took steps Tuesday to sell the streets running through Northmoor Apartments and Lindmont Apartments, home to about 800 people behind Piedmont Road.

That step will allow future developers to close the streets and use the apartment complex acreage as they see fit, said David Baker of Investors Realty Group, which has owned Northmoor Apartments since 1976.

The affordable rental district, where dozens of languages are spoken and residents rely on the Lindbergh MARTA station, will then be moved out, Shook said.

"People will be sad to see that go," he said. "But the highest and best use will replace many apartments. ... Time marches on."

The momentum of development is surrounding his apartments, Baker said.

"The value of the land is already greater than the value of the apartments," he said. "This area could have the biggest change to the skyline outside of Atlantic Station."

King is marketing his planned tower, complete with $140,000 one-bedrooms to $650,000 penthouse views, to the same types of young, urban dwellers, some of them first-time buyers, who bought his Mid City Lofts units in Midtown.

"The condo market is fueled by cheap money," he said.

"People who are able to afford to buy now, three to four years ago, they couldn't."

But some of the existing residents pay as much as $1,000 for a three-bedroom apartment at Northmoor, and Baker believes some of them can afford to stay, no matter what gets built in the neighborhood.

"It will change the character of the district somewhat but not entirely," Baker said. "And that's a good thing."