Sow's Ears to Silk Purses - Urbanism

Ponce City Market opened in 1926 as an industrial site in Atlanta built by the Sears?Roebuck?& Company. ?A massive brick warehouse and distribution center - more than 2 million square feet on a sixteen acre site, it is still in 2017 one of the largest buildings in the American Southeast .?In the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood and right on the elevated railroad it is testament to the infrastructure of 20th Century retail when Sears sold everything from houses in a box, to doll clothing.?Like so many industrial buildings of its era it’s beauty is in it’s scale not necessarily in it’s details.?It could almost be a brooding castle, but it isn’t.?At some point somebody must have called it a white elephant - too big and dark to be reinvented, and much too far from downtown to ever be relevant.?The City of Atlanta tried to make it work as a city hall having bought in for meager twelve million in the early 90’s as the Sears’s star faded.?Jamestown Property bought from the city and took the plunge.

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All across America we have industrial buildings constructed in the past hundred years that sit vacant.?Ride Amtrak from Boston to Washington and all along the way are brick monoliths, many with cracked windows and crumbling roofs but the brooding walls standing.?The buildings themselves were constructed in an era where engineering standards were high.?Here in New York City along the river fronts are again the evidence of an industrial and shipping past.?The question has been do we knock it down, or do we find a new purpose.?My first home in New York City was on the western edges of Soho where in 1975 the streets by dusk were completely deserted.?Some thirty years later the same neighborhood is hip luxury housing.?Soho, Tribeca then, now Williamsburg and the Brooklyn Navy Yard are all in transition.?In nodes all across America from New York to Detroit and Oakland in the midst of urban blight we have bright and shiny nodes of activity.

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Ponce City Market today is at the epicenter of changing Atlanta.?It is housing, retail, office space, dance studio, restaurant complex and amusement park.?It is big massive warm oven casting off heat and human activity.??The adjacent residential housing has almost doubled in price since the Ponce City opening in 2012.?Aging industrial buildings within a quarter mile are all being frantically redeveloped as both office and housing.?Wander the corridors it seemed as if the average age is twenty five and tattooed.?Bars are crowded and the spanxed workout classes on the old open air train station are hot in more than one way.?I loved the simple super graphics, curated bicycle parking and the curved stairways.?I didn’t mind paying for parking.?If I were twenty five again – Ponce City is as close to Disneyland as an childless adult can get.?It is a cleaned up grimy.?The developer has done a great job being true to the buildings roots with curated machines and time clocks. The retail stretches from local stores and brands to the new prototype William Sonoma.?You got coffee, alcohol, bread sticks and Kimchee.

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American cities are crying for reinvention.?The idea that you can live, work, and play in the same place is part of our village DNA.??Henry Ford and Frank Lloyd Wright may have distracted us for almost a century, but across the world we are returning to our roots.?As I have stated often in this newsletter retail and housing as ideas are intertwined.?The birth of the shopping mall was based on Americans moving to the suburbs.?All across the world, the middle and not so middle class are making lifestyle choices that are different from the preceding generation.

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How many hours a year do Atlantains or Angelinos spend stuck in their cars commuting between their homes and their jobs, much less their shopping.??Millenials are tired of driving. ?In the 1990’s we saw the birth of New Urbanism an planning revolution that tried to duplicate the look and feel of small towns.?Houses on small lots, a variety of housing types and cutie pie retail.?In parts of the south and Midwest it has brought new life.?It’s the small college town feel without the college.?The idea is you walk, see your neighbors, shop locally and use your car every two weeks to go to Costco.?New Urbanism begs a number of questions – cutie pie retail feels like a retirement hobby where in the face of Costco and Amazon, the small merchant has to be very careful picking their niches.?It also doesn’t address the issue of where people work or what’s the commute to the job??Yes it works in small and medium sized America, but what about cities?

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If asked how many of us would chose to live, work and play in the same place??Retail in all it’s forms is about supporting how we choose to live.?For every mall that closes and every Macy’s the fades we got places that are doing just fine.?From yesterday’s debris is the answer to tomorrows dream.?If there is a hero here it is Jamestown?Development that has done a remarkable job cherry picking properties like Ponce City in Atlanta and Chelsea Market in New York.?It isn’t about the amount of money you spend but about the vision you put into the spend.?