“What is innovative housing?” This was asked to a room full of folks at a seminar I attended a couple months back. It was a valid question given that we were there for what was billed as an Innovative Housing Summit. The funny thing was the event organizer and asker-of-the-question confessed that the same query had stumped him during a public radio interview promoting the event. A theater full of housing experts and presenters seemed to have their own difficulty articulating answers -- … [Read more...]
BeltLandia: a nice place to hang your hat
When you got hats -- which we do -- you need some place to hang ‘em, right? So, this hat rack. It’s a special hand-made hat rack, though, crafted with authentic BeltLandian mojo and bonafide BeltLine artifacts: The hat pegs are made from railroad spikes harvested from the BeltLine corridor and fabricated by Marty Martin’s team over at Fred Martin Welding Co. They’re a family-owned, O4W-based business since 1938 and they’ll weld anything but a broken heart and the crack of dawn. The … [Read more...]
Give the Atlanta Streetcar Wings
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I’ve been for streetcars on the BeltLine from the get-go, but only because they will run in dedicated guideways. Remove them from that context and run them through our city streets and they’re just another bus stuck in traffic. That a number of the planned 50 miles of streetcar lines will be integrated into already crowded city streets prompts this, my third post in an “upgrade the streetcar” theme. In my last post on the subject, I proposed some upgrades to the hundred-year-old technology … [Read more...]
There’s gold in them thar hoods!
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I just took a peek at the latest statistics for a few neighborhoods around the BeltLine Westside Trail -- namely Adair Park, West End, West View, and Capitol View. The median days on the market for homes sold in the past six months was just 13 and average sales prices were over 100% of asking price. The land rush to the West is clearly on! And it’s going to get more intense as the completion of the BeltLine Westside Trail approaches. But at this stage I still talk to people in the market … [Read more...]
Habitats for HIPsters
While Beltlandia is certainly attracting a healthy share of the classic hipster population to it’s environs, I refer in this post to those who qualify for Atlanta BeltLine’s new Housing Initiative Program [HIP]. Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) and Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. (ABI) today announced the reopening of HIP with a new round of grant goodness. HIP has up to $3 million in financial assistance for the purchase of new homes or the rehabilitation of existing homes along … [Read more...]
A sign of better times ahead
Words create worlds. Truth is, there was a time when train tracks like the Atlanta BeltLine divided communities, mostly along socioeconomic lines. “Where you’re always on the right side of the tracks” acknowledges that past while simultaneously casting a vision for a more inclusive future. Because words create worlds. The Atlanta BeltLine railroad re-invented as a common meeting ground for all of us is part of the awesome sauce that makes the surrounding neighborhoods -- BeltLandia -- … [Read more...]
Listing of the week: 1591 Linda Way in Westview
This post begins my weekly entry on some of the best property offerings for sale in BeltLandia. I recently took a client on a tour of homes for sale in the vicinity of the coming BeltLine Westside Trail. We were looking at homes priced in the $125,000 - $160,000 range. This home really stood out as an example of what you can still get in West BeltLandia for under $150,000. (Yes, I am suggesting that the home may be priced a little high -- but aren't most, initially?) You can't get a 1 bed, 1 … [Read more...]
Bring shelter for the soul to BeltLandia
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I recently toured a couple of live-work artist cottages at Serenbe Art Farm. The so-called 20K houses are the result of a seemingly unlikely partnership between the new urban enclave of the wealthy that is Serenbe, and Rural Studio, an undergrad program of Auburn University’s School of Architecture that builds houses for poor people. The visit took me back to one of the most transcendent moments of my life. It happened standing in a downpour outside a poor, elderly woman's home in Hale … [Read more...]
The Square – “At the Edge of Everything”
I remember when John Wieland Homes broke ground on Highland Park. It was the first new construction many of us had seen for a few years, thanks to the Great Recession. There was a collective gasp when the introductory price in the $300K range was announced for these townhouses. That seemed like such a high price point at the time. You have to remember that, at the depth of the recession, we had seen houses in the Old Fourth Ward go for as little as $15,000. Of course, the desirability for … [Read more...]
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