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Alliance tackling major intersections
Atlanta Business Chronicle
By Leslie Williams Johnson, Contributing writer
Tearing through existing sidewalks. Coordinating with utility companies. Replacing light fixtures and trees.
Creating the feel of a traditional Italian piazza at six Midtown intersections doesn't come easy.
"It's much more complex than one would think," said Sarah Yates, senior project manager with Silverman Construction Program Management Inc., of creating streetscapes and intersection improvements.
But it's on its way.
The work, making over the intersections along Peachtree Street from 10th to West Peachtree, is slated to begin early next year, said Shannon Powell, vice president of planning and development for Midtown Alliance.
The project could last from 12 to 18 months. The Peachtree intersections at Ponce de Leon and North Avenue are separate construction projects that are part of the overall vision, but will operate on a different timetable. Work in those areas will happen after the other intersection improvements.
The new look and feel of the intersections follows the recent installation of new sidewalks, light fixtures and trees from Third to 10th streets along Peachtree.
The streetscape program and sidewalk improvements, which include lighting, trees, and pocket parks, came from the Blueprint Midtown planning process done in 1997.
The work includes eliminating the pedestrian-unfriendly "slip lanes" at 15th and Ponce. Powell described slip lanes as almost always a curve that gets cars making a right out of a main lane. The cars yield to traffic as they come around the curve rather than coming to a complete stop.
The slip lanes move traffic, but they're dangerous to those on foot.
Yates said before creating 15-foot-wide sidewalks with a five-foot "furniture zone" -- where things such as pavers, tree wells, light fixtures and trash cans go -- the Group finds out what's underground. Surveys must be carefully reviewed and discussions with the utility companies must take place to determine and verify what lines exist and where, she said.
Once completed, the streetscapes and improvements won't be just pretty to walk through.
"They also have the added benefit when they're done in coordination with each other -- it begins to give you a sense that you're in a place rather than a series of destinations," Powell said.
And the atmosphere lends itself to more foot traffic.
"When you think of it as a place; when you think of it as linked through a centralized look or feel, you're much more likely to walk," she said.
The 15th Street and West Peachtree Street intersections will have the most significant amount of space to work with, easily allowing additions of fountains and pocket parks.
The changes will also set apart the different personalities of various stretches along Midtown's Peachtree.
"From 10th to 14th streets, we see the future being much more high energy, more retail. I think the streetscapes will enhance that environment. As you go north, toward the arts center, it becomes a little more serene," Powell said.
Eric Bishop, senior associate with EDAW Inc., and one of two lead designers on the project -- along with Ray Strychalski, now with Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. -- said the 15th Street intersection was the genesis of the improvements, and is definitely in need of change.
"It's incredibly dangerous for pedestrians," Bishop said. "What we looked at doing is making that more of a regular intersection. We ended up with a large chunk of land on the southeast side that used to be asphalt. That can become something now," he said.
Think traditional Italian piazza, or "a place you'd find in Medieval Europe," he said.
The area has an interesting mix of commercial and residential, office, cultural and spiritual elements, but it still lacks a key ingredient.
"There's nothing that contains the edge of that space. It doesn't really have a feeling of place," Bishop said.
Not yet, anyway. The answer to organizing the intersection and its elements is natural: trees. Certain oak trees are under consideration, but Bishop said nothing has been finalized.
The plans call for concrete pavers in the furniture zone, and at the intersections and in the pocket parks, the pavers will be granite.
The total investment for the streetscape program is $75 million; $24.8 million comes from state and federal funding, private investment to date is $20 million; Midtown Improvement District investment, $13.6 million; and other funding, $4.8 million.
The intersection improvements have a $4 million budget. Half of the funding comes from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and the other $2 million was matched by the Midtown Improvement District, Powell said.
The construction management Group at Silverman is very sensitive to the work's effect on restaurants and other businesses, Powell said.
"We survey the business to understand where their greatest needs are and we try to adjust accordingly to work with them," Powell said.
Contractors are limited to disrupting 300 feet of sidewalks at any given time, he said. During any lane or street closings, a police officer will be on hand to assist with traffic flow.
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