Looking at the mixed bag of Atlantic Station’s urbanism, 14 years later

Atlantic Station opened in 2005 as a major mixed-use project in northwest Atlanta, with retail spaces, apartments, office towers, a movie theater, and events space.

The focus of news coverage on the project back then was that 138 acres of brownfield land, where the Atlantic Steel facility once stood, were getting redeveloped. 14 years later, that part of its history seems mostly a footnote, with the project having become accepted as just another part of the city — though one that feels a bit like a geographic island, bordered on two sides by railways and interstate highways.

My take on it, as of today: despite not being 100% perfect in its urbanism, Atlantic Station is overall a good development.

It has decent access for buses, it has retail necessities (a grocery store that sits on the sidewalk, also clothing stores), it’s safe for walking, and the mix of uses leans heavily toward residential.

We could nitpick over private streets, bland architecture, the lack of public-owned spaces, and the horrible piped-in music. But my final analysis is swayed most heavily by the fact that I was able to take MARTA here recently to buy some groceries, and at no point did I curse the walking conditions or transit access. That’s something.

I remember when it was necessary to go much further out from the city center to find places to buy everyday stuff like underwear and dishes. Newcomers to Atlanta probably don’t have that frame of reference. For long timers like me, this accessibility to basic home supplies near Midtown was welcome.

Despite the convenience of retail stores, many locals complain — rightly so — about the center of the development having too much of a theme-park feel, coming across as inauthentic as an urban space. Also, the giant parking facility it rests on top of gives one the sense that this is a major drive-to destination like shopping mall, and not a true neighborhood.

The theme park-ness of it is probably the hardest thing to fix. You’d have to try to retrofit some truly public-owned spaces in there, with a city park and a public library, a post office, a community center — those kinds of things that are shared in ownership by the community are lacking here and it’s a problem.

As for parking, surely there’s no place in Atlanta or most any large U.S. city where this amount of retail square footage and event space and hotel square footage happens without a parking deck involved. I think rather than accepting that the parking will forever make it a drive-to destination, Atlantic Station could do more to make alternatives attractive.

To reduce driving, maybe the owners could build excellent bus stop accommodations for MARTA and for the shuttle from Arts Center Station. That seems like a natural fit here. Doing that, plus increasing the frequency of the shuttle, could possibly shift some people from car trips to transit ones while increasing access for people who don’t drive. There’s probably a lot that could be done to make it less car oriented and more equitable in its accessibility, if the owners prioritized it.