As Atlanta’s hottest office submarket, the Dunwoody/Central Perimeter area has long grappled with crippling traffic. Now that the recession is over, the city is ready to do something about it. Dunwoody city officials are proposing a new, $20+ million connector that should ease traffic and help accommodate the surge of new development planned for the area. This, along with the steadily progressing State Farm development and the massive, $1.1 billion overhaul of the I-285-GA 400 interchange, could kick off a long-term transformation of Dunwoody’s urban center into something resembling Buckhead or Midtown, the Atlanta Business Chronicle notes.
The “Westside Connector,” as it is now being called, would take westbound motorists from I-285 under Ashford Dunwoody to Perimeter Center Parkway near State Farm’s new corporate campus. It would also feature an eastbound lane that will give motorists another way to connect to westbound I-285. The new east-west link could potentially take 700 or more cars off Hammond Drive and Ashford Dunwoody Road during rush hour. Not only that, the connector would include a12-foot-wide, quarter-mile, paved trail to provide pedestrian access to the Dunwoody MARTA station from nearby office parks.
The connector is badly needed, because traffic in the Central Perimeter will only get worse when the State Farm complex is completed. The project will bring 8,000 more employees to an area where the population almost triples—from 47,600 to more than 125,000—during the work week.
- High Street Development: includes 400,000 square feet of new retail space, 400,000 square feet of new office space, a 400-room hotel, 3,000 residential units, and 235,000 square feet of existing office space near Perimeter Center Parkway.
- 1201 Hammond Drive: includes 780,000 square feet of office space, 300,000 square feet of retail space, a 350-room hotel, and 200 residential units.
- 244 Perimeter Center: includes 1,000,000 square feet of office space and a 500-room hotel.
- Hines Ravinia IV: 37,000 square feet of retail space.
- NorthPlace: a 3.7-acre office campus at Barfield Road and Mount Vernon Highway in Sandy Springs. Includes two towers encompassing 250,000 square feet and 100,000 square feet.
Once it gets underway, the Westside Connector could spur even more development, most notably the redevelopment at last of the former Gold Kist headquarters, a 260,000-square-foot building next to the State Farm project and the Dunwoody MARTA station. The road would provide new access to the Gold Kist site, potentially making it more attractive to potential tenants and driving up its value.
Perhaps that’s why real estate developer Charlie Brown with Crown Holdings has offered to donate about two acres of the 15-acre site to the City of Dunwoody to use for the connector. A Crown Holdings affiliate, Dunwoody Crown Towers, LLC, bought the Gold Kist property in 2013, an article published by Reporter Newspapers says.
Brown’s land donation—estimated to be worth some $8 million—will hold down the cost of developing the connector considerably. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dunwoody has an annual budget of about $31 million and will seek state and federal funds to help complete the project. Mayor Mike Davis says that funding for the connector’s design is already in place. The city of Dunwoody will spend $500,000 on engineering and design, and the city hopes that a grant from the State Road and Tollway Authority will match that.
City of Dunwoody officials have been discussing the connector proposal with state transportation leaders for about a year. Both state and federal approvals are required to build the new road, which will likely take about five years to design permit, and build. It would open about a year after completion of the I-285/400 interchange overhaul, which will add lanes and bridges to one of the region’s worst bottlenecks. The overhaul is set to begin next year and to be finished in 2019.
The Westside Connector still has a number of hurdles to overcome—permitting and funding, for starters—but it has come a long way since it was first conceptualized in the 2011 Perimeter Community Improvement Districts’ 10-year plan. If it becomes a reality, it could end up as just the first step in a longer-term plan to create a grid system connecting Perimeter Mall to the office and retail projects along Hammond and Perimeter Center Parkway. Ultimately, the Westside Connector could make the Central Perimeter into an even hotter submarket than it is today.
Blog contributed by Kevin Creel, Managing Principal of Cresa Atlanta. Kevin has over 25 years of experience representing tenants in Atlanta and around the US, with experience in transaction management, strategic planning, portfolio management, building and land sales/purchases, build-to-suit projects, and disposition assignments. For more information, contact Kevin atkcreel@cresa.com or 404-446-1576.