2022-09-26 Southwest Study Group - Murphy Crossing Redevelopment
10:31PM Sep 26, +0000
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your way to an Atlanta BeltLine public meeting. We're letting the room fill in a little bit. The subject matter tonight is a Murphy crossing update. This is a public meeting. The format is a Southwest study group. My name is Nathan. And we'll get started in just a moment. See that number climbing. Looks like we're live on Facebook as well. So without further delay, let's get started. We don't want to waste anyone's time. appreciate everybody being so punctual My name is Nathan soul that I'm a senior communication manager for Atlanta BeltLine, Inc, and this is a Southwest study group meetings. The subject matter of Murphy crossing will be the focus of the evening. Avi Atlanta BeltLine Inc is the organization that's responsible for implementing the vision of the Atlanta BeltLine. Now you may have noticed we have enabled live transcription. So if you'd like to view this option, please go ahead and click Live transcript at the bottom of your screen. And this will allow you to select your participants. We're expecting a few elected officials with us tonight. So I'm just going to take a quick scan of the room. See if anyone's joined us. That will circle back and work them into the flow
Alright, so we're going to move forward for the time being. Let's go ahead and meet the ABI team. We have several members of the team on the call tonight. Atlanta BeltLine Inc is committed to creating a culture within the organization that values and advances equity and inclusion. Part of that means representation of our 45 Plus beltline neighborhoods on staff, staff members participating with you tonight represent various disciplines across APIs organization, and we are here to support your experience with the presentation, our conversation questions and answers, as well as our Facebook live experience. All right. So at this time, I do want to give a warm welcome to Councilmember DeLozier, who's joining us and as councilmember dosha if you'd like to say a few words to warm the room.
Thank you so much Nathan and I will emphasize a few in the number of words that I have for the holidays even just want to thank not only Atlanta. beltline Incorporated, for putting this presentation together getting out before community. I've also want to thank the community for their hard work and dedication in providing feedback to you all as the Beltline team to ensure that the vision for Murphy's crossing will be executed in a way that the community wants to see had a number of conversations with community members over the years around Murphy crossing the market crossing coalition and MPU S and P UV and eight air Park and Oakland City and other communities to try to make sure we can do what we can to ensure that communities are at the top of mind for everyone that we can build something that is centered around people. And I'm really excited to see what the future of Murphy crossing holds is not District Four. I'm you know, unfortunately on the other side of railroad tracks as far as the district is concerned, but I know a lot of my constituents would be able to use and to participate and to be a part of this in ways that are transcends district boundaries. So I just want to say thank you all. And I was want to welcome the broader community to this meeting. I know a lot of good information to be shared. And I'm happy to support everyone here and as far as what we can do to make sure that we can make this vision finalize his vision and make it a reality. This is one thank you all and glad to be a part of this conversation.
Thank you so much. Councilmember dosha and thank you for joining us. All right, so just a little bit of housekeeping here and we're gonna talk about the agenda and the format. The chat is disabled. We use this as a one way communication out to the audience. But you will have plenty of time when we get to the q&a to put comments and questions into the q&a But hold those comments and questions for the time being. All right, so we do have about 92 Excuse me, 96 people who have joined us on the Zoom platform. We have an additional audience on our Facebook Live page. If you're watching on the Zoom platform or Facebook Live, you can follow along in the agenda at the top of the each slide. If you're listening by phone. I'll walk you through how you can access the agenda and everything else in this meeting. So tonight we've opened with a Walkman, some logistics. We're going to follow this with audience pooling and a quick one on one to ground the room. After that, we'll have a presentation about Murphy crossing followed by questions, comments, and robust conversation. Please do not place questions in the q&a box until we get to that portion of the agenda. Questions placed in the q&a box prior to completion of the presentation will be dismissed. But that's to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to hear the presentation without distraction. No worries though. These questions can be retrieved in the answer section in the q&a box. Copy and paste them back over to the Live section. And we will hit them back up in the q&a when we get started. So they won't be gone. They'll just be on the other side. All right, you've probably noticed that your lines muted and you're not going to be able to share your video screen during the meeting. What we're doing is trying to provide the highest and best listening experience for everyone. That's on the line. We have a large group tonight. No worries we have a recording of the meeting is being posted directly after we finish. The presentation is already up on the website and everything's at beltline.org forward slash meetings. If you happen to have any technical difficulties, reach out to us by emailing engage at ATL beltline.org. If we encounter any technical difficulties, we definitely appreciate your patience as we sort those out. So before we jump into the follow on project, let's get a sense of the virtual room by asking you a few questions. As I start the poll, you should see a question pop up on your screen. And this feature is not available if you've called in or viewing on Facebook Live, but I'm gonna take some time to read the results, questions and answers to the group. So let's get started. All right, so first question, what neighborhood Do you live in? And you'll notice we focused on the neighborhoods closest to the Murphy crossing site. There's a limited amount of options you can do within zoom platform. So we have Oakland City, a deer park, Capitol view, Capitol view Manor, Weston, Busch mountain Sylvan hills, Pittsburgh, another city of Atlanta neighborhood that's not in the list or a neighborhood that's outside of the city of Atlanta. So we have 100 405 participants as long as I'm seeing that number grow quickly. We're going to go ahead and keep going. And once it slows down or stops, we'll lock it in getting great participation All right. I'm going to cut it off at 9193. And let's take a look at the results. Alright, so we had 93 people participate in that poll. We had 15 People Oakland City 12 people their park 13 Capitol view to Capitol view Manor West End seven Bush mountain 110 For Sylvan Hills for for Pittsburgh. 23 other neighborhoods in the city and six individuals outside of the city of Atlanta. Let's move on to the next poll. And the question up for grabs is How long have you lived in your neighborhood. So the categories include one to five years, six to 10 years, or 11 or more years. Again, we're going to try to wait for really high participation. We now have 110 attendees, numbers taken up or at ATA see if we can push over 90 here. There's 90 This lock it in. All right, so pretty good mix here. One to 553 people, six to 10 years 19 people and we have 18 people who have lived in their neighborhood for 11 or more years. Thank you for sharing that information with us. Let's move on to the next question. All right, so the next question is what is the most important part of the Beltline to you now up to this point, we've been doing single choice. Here we're going to ask you if you want to go ahead and select a couple of things. That's no problem. We have housing affordability, economic development, jobs, resources for residents, parks, multi use trails, equity and inclusion, public art, slash cultural history, community engagement, and transit.
Now this one takes a little bit longer, you're making multiple selections. The number keeps rising, we're at about 51 responses. The room still has 110 Audience members or guests. And we'll go ahead and lock that in. We just got over 90 So we're gonna lock that in at 92. We have every category represented. numbers or percentages won't add up since it's multiple choice we have a strong transit following economic development and jobs and housing affordability as long as as well as multi use trails with the top responses. So we'll move on to the fourth poll question. This question is, what is your relationship to the Atlanta BeltLine? So just like that last one is multiple choice. You can have many relationships with the BeltLine, so select any to apply. All right, we're gonna list them out for you. I use a trail and the homeowner and a beltline neighborhood. I rent a home in a beltline neighborhood. I'm a residential landlord in the Beltline neighborhood. I'm a business owner in a beltline neighborhood. I am a commercial landlord in the Beltline neighborhood. I'm a developer. I'm a real estate broker. I am a community activist, and or advocate. And last but not least, I am generally interested in the Beltline project. So by the time I finish talking, we're already at 93 responses. We'll go ahead and lock it in. And the final lock got us to 99 out of 117 We continue to grow this space. Again, percentages won't add up. But we do have representation in every category with a lot of trail users, a lot of homeowners. A few residential landlords have very strong interest in general about the Beltline project. And very very importantly, we have 23 individuals who have identified as community activists or advocates. Welcome to this space. last poll question. Before we get into our buntline one on one this one's simple. I expect the numbers to go up quickly is tonight your first beltline meeting and we're talking virtually or in person? Doesn't matter. Tell us that this is your first time with us. We now have 121 Audience members. We're already at 102 responses.
And in the interest of time we're going to lock that in as much as I want to go all the way to the top we got 103 responses. I think that's pretty strong. So I'll start with the notes. So we have 72 people who have been to the Beltline meeting before and Joel 31. You're gonna guys going to hear from Joel later 31 People who've been never to a beltline meeting before this is our first meeting. We welcome you. We're glad you can join us and take part this evening. So all right, let's go ahead and jump on in we almost always have new members to our beltline. It's not unusual or beltline meetings, but this is a very high number and we want to make sure that we ground the room and quick outline one on one. It is going to be quick but I hope that you guys get the feel for it. The beltline is a transportation project. In fact, it was really a transit project at its core. The idea was to take old freight railroad lines that were used as bypasses much like to 85 around the city bypasses to five points where a lot of the freight rail was coming through back in the day and stitch these old bypasses together, repurpose them and create a transportation corridor with the heart and the core of it to be rail transit, complemented by a walking trail. So a 22 mile loop of transit, a 22 mile ish loop of walking trails. will tell us trails with an additional balance that ABI is responsible for of 11 connected 11 miles of connector trails. Now what are we connecting well, really at the core of of connecting communities and a lot of communities were disconnected by the rail infrastructure. It was very much a dividing barrier in the city and we're trying to bring neighborhoods together. We're also trying to connect 1300 acres in new green space. We're trying to connect 5600 units of new affordable workforce housing. We're trying to generate $10 billion in economic development to create 40,000 construction jobs. These are one year jobs. It's how they're counted. And 50,000 permanent jobs. We're connecting one of the largest public art exhibits in the southeast if not the country. And we're also cleaning up as we go around. So there's a lot of contaminated soil. The wheel connected with a lot of industrial uses, and the rail itself, in some cases was contaminated. So we're doing that as well. These connections are happening with the community. And we have a very robust communication process you're taking part in that process this evening. And all this work throws, throw blows not throws flows through the lens of equity and inclusion. And this is really reflected in our vision statement. We think of this as our Northstar, our guiding vision. And that vision is to be the catalyst for making Atlanta a global beacon for equitable, inclusive and sustainable city life. no small task and certainly not something we do on our own. We do this with our partners so we could spend a lot more time on that. But hopefully you guys all have a sense as to the full breadth of the Atlanta BeltLine project. It's my pleasure at this time to hand things over to Beth McMillan, Vice President of Community Planning, engagement and arts and culture Beth.
Good evening, everyone. I would like to go and discuss with you how we have gotten to where we are today. So what was the intention? Of ABI for the second round of community engagement regarding Murphy crossing. We wanted to establish an equitable community engagement process that would create trust and transparency with the surrounding communities and stakeholders. We also wanted to see as an outcome that we would forge a mutual trust and communication between ABI and the neighborhoods that are adjacent to Murphy. Crossing. We worked with the stakeholders who were comprised of neighborhood leadership MPU leadership, Community Association leadership, and we worked with them to develop a strap scope of work for this new request for proposals for Murphy crossing. This RFP reflected community input gathered through a series of public meetings and stakeholder advisory committee meetings, the components of the RFP that was published include it employment and job creation, economic development, project uses and site development, green space housing, arts and culture, community engagement and equitable implementation of the prop project. We encountered or we held over a course of a few months to develop this RFP we held with the stakeholder group we held eight meetings between September 20 and November 20 to develop the draft scope. We had a meeting on February the fourth of 2021 to share the process update after we took what we heard. And we came back and tried to turn it into Avi procurement language. We came back and reviewed that with the stakeholders. And then we had a meeting in April of 2021. After the RFP was finally published with the community in terms of public meetings, we held seven meetings between September of 2020 and November of 2020 to let you have input into the draft RFP as it was being developed, and the RFP was released on April 28 of 2021. With that I'm going to hand off to Dennis to tell to tell to tell us what happened after the RFP was responded to and where we are today. Dennis Richards, our Vice President of housing and housing policy.
Thank you best and good evening. Everyone is good to be with you. As Beth mentioned, I'm Dennis Richards, Vice President of housing policy and development for the Beltline. And in my work, I'm tasked with advancing the belt lines affordable housing work within the Beltline tax allocation district, and that does include site acquisitions and ensuring the redevelopment of ABI owned property in alignment with the community's interests. With that on behalf of the selection committee comprised of Atlanta BeltLine and invest Atlanta staff. We would like to introduce you to the development team selected as the finalists in connection with the Murphy crossing RFP. The development team here today includes cold a sack Incorporated. Cold a sack is a real estate development firm based out of Tempe Arizona, and they specialize in high density walkable transit oriented development. And cold a sack will be partnering with urban oasis development which many of you know will urban oasis development as a local minority owned real estate development firm and they're known for their workforce affordable housing product. Development teams architectural partner will also be a local foreign firm, Cronenberg, urbanists and architects and are currently working on other development projects within the Murphy triangle. And are also the firm responsible for the design of the LEED white redevelopment on the west side trail. It also should be noted that other partners include LDG consulting, and T Dallas Smith and company their broker partner. So without further ado, I would like to welcome the finalists team to just introduce themselves to also provide you with a detailed overview of our proposed redevelopment project, followed by a q&a. Was that Sara?
Thank you, Dennis, for the great introduction. We're excited to be meeting with you all today and sharing more about our proposed project. Murphy crossing by culdesac. We'll do a quick round of introductions before getting into our presentation. Starting with myself, Sara Zhou. I'm the project lead for Murphy crossing. I'm based here in Atlanta. Hi, I'm
Ryan Johnson. I'm the CEO culdesac
Hi, I'm Jeff Behrens, CEO and co founder of cul de sac.
Hello, I'm Alexa Stillen. I do community relations for culdesac.
Hi, I'm Jasmine Liddell, and I lead mobility at cul de sac. Hey, everyone, I'm Jen Howell and I lead Neighborhood Services for culdesac
Hi, everyone. I'm Daniel tyeb. And I do business operations I've called a sock. I'm also located in Westview in Atlanta. Hi, my name is Duke Eugenio. Are you ever designed for cul de sac and I'm also based in Atlanta
and my name is Blythe. Ingvarsson, and I do marketing for cul de sac.
Good evening, everyone, neighbors. I'm Joel Dixon, principal co founder of urban oasis development.
Good evening, everybody. I'm Wally nuga. I'm also co principal and founder of urban oasis and a resident of a deer park.
Set me up by Eric Kronberg. Excited to be here from Cronenberg Robinson architects Thank you
Hello, my name is Tommy Collins and I'm an associate director with T Dallas Smith and company is a pleasure Hello, this is ours. Lynch, founder of LDG consulting also in Atlanta.
Content we're gonna ask you to do that again with the voice with the mute.
Oh, I was not unmuted. Sorry guys. This is content Terry with content consulting principle public engagement consultant
and I am Whitney Poehler, your Friendly Community Engagement Manager with content consulting.
Awesome well, today
we're gonna be going through the following agenda. We'll tell you a little bit more about ourselves, particularly about culdesac and our joint development partners urban oasis development. Then we'll present our shared vision for Murphy crossing based on API's previous community engagement to date we understand that our plans will continue to evolve as we conduct our own community engagement process. So what we share today is really just a starting point. We'll touch base on future steps for that community engagement going forward. And at the end, we'll have some time for q&a. A bit more about
just the past. Sorry, apologize. And I believe we've been notified that Councilmember Antonio Lewis may have joined at this point, Nathan, I don't know if you want to do that introduction before we have hopped back in.
Yep, if we can and customer Lewis, are you able to unmute yourself? I'm actually looking to see if he's in the audience or on the panel. My apologies. I see a raised hand just a moment.
Nathan. He joined under Mina to Robbie's name.
Yep. All right. Mina, your life or councilmember Lewis.
Thank you just wanted to let everybody know I was on and here listening. Can't wait to hear. Hear what folks have talked about tonight. Congratulations again on on the purchasing or Murphy coughs
Thank you, Councilmember Lewis. Sarah.
Great. Thank you. I'm excited to have you with us council person. So as you can see here, and as we've introduced earlier we have assembled a cross functional and collaborative team with both extensive national and deep with Southwest Atlanta experience. 50% of the development team is black. Our team consists of culdesac who I am representing, we build large scale neighborhoods with a focus on human experience. We have urban oasis development, or joint venture development partners. Joe will share more about urban oasis development shortly. We have Kronberg urbanist and architects Atlanta based architect and urban design firm passionate about mixed use and creating dynamic spaces for all Atlantans to enjoy. As Dennis has mentioned, they've been behind some of the leading south side projects, such as Leon white and Georgia Avenue. T Dallas Smith and company renowned Atlanta based company known for bringing and placing the right tenants to properties across Atlanta, including the most recent Microsoft headquarters three LDG consulting their team has deep commercial real estate experience in Atlanta, particularly in Development Advisory Services and Community and construction management. projects include in an affordable housing development with Murphy, sorry, Mercy Housing, content consulting, community engagement professionals with over 20 years engaging stakeholders in planning, designing and shaping communities. Some of our cross team and interdisciplinary projects span development, redevelopment, design, tenant leasing and Construction Management here in Atlanta and beyond. culdesac Tempe is CO Sachs flagship award winning property in Tempe Arizona, opening later this year. For context culdesac tempIes location and scale is similar to Murphy crossing, but in the Phoenix Arizona metropolitan area. The site is also about 20 acres adjacent to a train station and near downtown. The surrounding area has a rich cultural history from the deep rooted Hispanic communities there and we'll share more about our work at culdesac Tempe throughout the presentation. Many of urban oasis developments projects are located throughout the south and west sides of Atlanta, including historic Adair Park and Capitol view. This page also highlights select projects completed by members of our extended team, which you may recognize. At the core, cul de sac builds neighborhoods that embrace mobility community and open space to create a vibrant urban lifestyle. We take investments in and partnerships with small local minority and women owned businesses. Seriously. I will speak about some of our retail partners later in the presentation and how we've supported them even before opening. We have a diverse team with at least 50% women and 50% people of color. Our project team is 750 or sorry our Tempe project is 750 residential units and over 30,000 square feet of retail and amenities. It is a transit oriented development with parking for retail but no residential parking. This shift and land use enables us to redirect land area and money to build higher density without sacrificing sky views. With dedicating more open space and developing additional flexible community space and amenities. And we've seen unprecedented demand for development, proving a lot of people want walkable urban life. Where they can create community with their neighbors and meet their daily needs without a private vehicle. on the residential side, we've pre leased with hundreds on the waitlist and our retail tenants were at least a year ahead of opening.
We are building life at your front door around mobility we believe that the way we get around has the potential to drastically change the way we live. We design in a way that is conducive to walking, biking, scootering public transportation, car share rideshare and delivery options. We pull a partner with leading mobility companies like Lyft and bird to develop convenient and affordable transportation services to residents, neighbors and visitors. Around community we take great emphasis on not only designing spaces that bring people together but also actively programming those spaces to spur activity. We'd focus not only on our residents, but also on adjacent neighbors and regional city dwellers and around open space. We have a variety of nature and public plazas for people to congregate. We also brought it home. So at our culdesac Tempe office depicted here, we actually changed the parking spaces in front of our office into a public park lit and we built a bike lane straight to our front door
well, it's very exciting. Residents and neighbors everyone to join alongside of our great partners Sarah and the entire code of SEC team. But y'all know urban oasis development is no stranger. In fact, we're very proud to be the joint venture development partner with Coda sec, as a legacy resident who was raised not more than a few minutes from here and the former John Hope University homes. This area is very personal. In fact, it's so personal that myself along with my business partner, well, they wanted to be a part of some of the solutions. We know that there's been a tremendous amount of activity in redevelopment around Atlanta. Unfortunately, a lot of that has not trickled down to the south side to the west side. And so when me and when they moved back into the neighborhood back in about seven years ago, the whole point of moving into historic a deer park was to be impactful with our neighbors to be bridge builders from a development standpoint, and to finally see the manifestation of so many dreams that have been too long deferred. That includes the Murphy crossing site. The community is core of our DNA. We're very excited that Coda set was very intentional about coming alongside that program and that plan. We understand that this is something that we're doing together. That is with you, not on you and that there is intentionality around every step of the way. And I truly commend ABI because it takes a lot to be the first time a city organization has selected a development team that includes both a legacy resident and current residents of the surrounding neighborhood. This is not something to take lightly, and it's something that we believe is going to be extremely important, important as we proceed. You can see a bit of our portfolio and a lot of that is around very innovative models of both affordability cooperative ownership. That means opportunities for everyone, as well as community focus and innovative retail. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But from an urban oasis development standpoint, one of the key things is that once we've been here, we've been around we understand a lot of the conversations that long preceded the RFP and we were part of those conversations and so as we continue to proceed tonight, and going forward, you can always know that there's a local member of the neighborhood right at the date at the table. And with that, as we've been welcoming in Kota sack as a tremendous partner. The great thing is that this was something that was vetted, y'all I didn't just we didn't just join this team just because somebody called us this is me out in Tempe visiting the site, which I've been to several times a lot of the programs and planning that me and my and well I have been thinking about for many years is something that we saw in action in fruition when we went out to Tempe and Yes, that's me. On a bike holding a sign called Cities for people at the heart of everything that we're looking to do. That's the key. This is about a people first approach, and I've seen it live and in person when we came back to Atlanta and as we began to work and develop this over RFP with the team, I can excitedly say that this is exactly what we've all been hoping for. And so with that, we do want to continue to proceed and show you what's behind the curtain. So the Murphy's crossing proposal, as many of you know, is something that has been long time and coming and involved a lot of you on the call today, but also many of you that may not have been as involved. We've been very intentional with a team about understanding the history, both of the site and as well as the the neighborhood but also being intentional about listening to many of the feedback that came as a part of the Murphy's crossing coalition, of which we're very familiar in addition to the RFP, and of course the process that that preceded it, that really was helpful to us, because we're looking at coming alongside that to execute and exemplify exactly both the spirit and the written aspects of that proposal process. So as we continue to proceed and talk about more of the specifics these were some of the things that stood out. And I don't want to undersell or underrepresented that quote, by Miss Judy Walker, many of you know as a legacy resident as somebody who continues to be very active in the Oakland City community of which the Murphy's crossing site is directly connected. That this was a part of what she wanted to see in a future development team. And so I think that it really hits on a lot of the key components that were focused on economic development. I noticed in the chat during the polling period, that jobs was the number one highest percentage of what people were looking for out of this site. We've heard that loud and clear, and we understand that and that does include affordable commercial opportunities for black and brown businesses to be a part of this. Affordable housing was the number two poll and that is right alongside with what we heard and recognized as well. And so that's very much a part of our proposals. And then finally, quality urban design. Now, transit was actually the number three thing based on the poll. And I want you to understand that a lot of the aspects and the conversations around transit come back to how urban design and how we design the city. This is a phenomenal site to really amplify all of the things that we've been hoping for, but that urban design is something that we're very well suited to, to enact and exemplify. And with that, we hope will come a phenomenal number of things including transit.
As we delve a little bit deeper into this proposal, I want to hit kind of the 20,000 foot view of the actual things that we're looking to do through this catalytic development. So of course, housing is a an important component of this, we're going to do at least 800 residential units, of which 240 of those units will be affordable. In fact, we're going to do at at least 20 to 25% of that is permanently affordable. That means that that is going to be affordability, affordability in perpetuity, and yes, that means for an extended extended extended period of time, but we're also going to be including alongside that residential affordability for the commercial side of things, you see that we're going to have over 150,000 square feet of office and light industrial. I understand the desire to have I mix I understand the desire to have jobs right and job creation at all levels. That's going to be embedded. We're going to establish and create 3000 new jobs. That sounds like a lot, but it's very much needed as opportunities. And yes, that's going to be jobs available for everybody, including those who are legacy, including those at all educational levels. 180,000 and retail is also going to be a part of this development, we need to understand the importance of having a true mixed use development, live, work and play. And so we want to allow for all of our neighbors to walk to the types of neighborhood retail that once again has been absent for too long to ensure, however, that everybody can be a part of this conversation. And a part of this economic engine. We are looking at small businesses, black and brown businesses of every sort in particular and asking the question, how do we include everyone along the Beltline? One of the ways that we're looking forward to doing that is putting money $25,000 in small business grants for 30% of the retail commercial retail to be dedicated towards to ensure that at least 30% is an affordable commercial component. That is something that's never been done before. Yes, this is the first time you've ever seen this in the city, period, but we're very excited to be leading in this way. That will ensure once again that this is an economic opportunity for everyone. And then as we talk about urban design as I mentioned earlier, we want to make this a people first pedestrian friendly development 1.5 miles of pedestrian oriented streets, in fact, alongside green spaces of every sort mixed in between. We're also very intentional as a neighbor as a resident who said in these meetings seven years ago about the current buildings on the site, we want to be intentional about the historic preservation. Can we save every building? Certainly not. But we're going to be intentional about how we adaptively reuse those buildings that are capable of being saved. And once again, that will reinforce opportunities for all types of commerce. I will say that in prefacing everything that we're saying, you see that kind of fine print all of these numbers and the site plan or in a ongoing process of discovery, right, is that we're looking forward to engaging with the community with each one of you on what that final design what that final site plan looks like. And so we hope that you will take everything we're going to show today with a grain of salt because this is not a finished work. It's something that we're going to do alongside of you with that as we continue to talk about some of these pieces in more detail the affordable housing, which really relates to attainable beltline living. We keep hearing about of course the housing and affordable housing crisis. We keep hearing about the Beltline being preeminent a part of that, whether it's displacement or lack of opportunity. We do believe that in setting aside 30% of these residential units at 60 to 80% Ami, we're doing something that will allow for more attainable housing on the Beltline. And as I mentioned, a large percentage of that will also be permanently affordable. Such that that will always be available as attainable housing. But some of the things that we don't always talk about is really what it means to have more attainable households living anywhere. When you look at your budget. I will tell you that there's three key things that typically stand out your housing costs, your transportation costs, and then use your your utility costs. We talk a lot about the housing costs, and there are mechanisms whereby utility costs are being addressed, but very few folks are talking about transportation. We believe that the mobility offerings that we're going to include as a part of this development will create true lifestyle affordability. That means if we can reduce your transportation costs, we're actually increasing your opportunities for attainability across a variety of areas, and so you'll learn a lot more about those going forward
and on the transportation, though, because we know this is not something that everybody talks about, but here are the start numbers. Yes. 62%. Right of your overall expenses is housing and transportation. If we start hitting not just the housing, which we've shown you how but also the transportation, we're going to really start addressing what it means to be more affordable and attainable in the Beltline. And if that number to the right $14,700 represents an annual vehicle ownership costs, if we can bring that down or eliminated. Guess what you could do with that amount of money yet alone. Anybody who has 60% ami 50% Ami, it changes the whole conversation. So just know that this is real data with real numbers and real impact. We're excited to be the first to introduce something that will really address all aspects of your income. With that we're also very excited to continue the conversations around economic development. One of the great things that Coda sack really impressed me on and I'm gonna let Sarah really run with this is that they're an economic development engine at heart. And the things that they're looking at doing really are things that we were already talking about as neighborhood as residents. And so with that, I'm excited to hand the baton back over to Sarah to discuss that in more detail.
Thanks, Joe. We're positioning our project to be a catalytic driver of economic development in southwest Atlanta, and a platform for neighbors workers. entrepreneurs and small businesses to succeed. What's unique about our model is that we build and then we also stay. We don't outsource the ongoing community we personally manage the neighborhood to make sure our initial vision is continuously being executed at our quality bar. As such, we will bring our second cola sack headquarters to the site to ensure that we are personally a part of creating living wage and career track jobs on site. Construction on site will take place over multiple phases and several years. This active development and Property Management thereafter. Also means job opportunities for local workers. We're very focused on providing attainable and flexible commercial space with a mix of light industrial office, event space retail live work co working Makerspace we have pop ups long term leases and more to serve a variety of potential tenants across all sizes, timelines and strategies. Moreover, as Joe mentioned before, we'll be issuing small business grants and offering affordable commercial spaces to support our tenants, particularly those who may just be starting their enterprises and will also work with our network of entrepreneurs and companies to offer skills oriented program programming and to put on networking events. So supporting local and small and minority and women owned businesses is the bedrock of our approach to creating diverse neighborhoods that serve a variety of community needs. We've already been implementing aspects of our community and economic development toolkit in Tempe Arizona. So some examples include giving a free platform to 12 year old kid printer, Jade Anderson and other vendors like her at our weekly Community Market on site. We provided a small business grant or award winning restaurant tours who are opening their new concept restaurant on site. And this area of Tempe was a food desert. So supporting our onsite brochure was of utmost importance. We provided capacity support to apply to multiple grants that help them double snap and EBT benefits. And then we also help them negotiate and secure lower interest rate loan with their bank from an estimate conducted by the Regional Economic Development Authority of Phoenix 10 B and call the SEC Tempe will generate over 600 million in economic impact in the surrounding area over 10 years. Our approach to urban design is all about enabling placemaking and having something for everyone. We plan to keep and adapt iconic buildings on site to maintain character and honor the site's history. We also plan to dedicate over 40% of the site to open space amenities like lawns and shaded seating areas and pet parks so that residents, neighbors visitors and workers all have a space to enjoy and will intentionally activate these outdoor spaces with farmers markets aren't by local muralist or sculptor lists, and interactive entertainment. Our team has a track record of designing and developing award winning spaces. culdesac Tempe is comprised of missing middle housing with protected bike and pedestrian infrastructure, artistic representation from local communities and appropriate shade structures. And our architect Kronberg, urbanists and architects were not only behind phase one of Lee and white just down the street, but also georgia avenue summer hill where they focused on adaptive reuse and flexible outdoor spaces. I'll pass it back to Joel to talk a bit more about our community engagement process moving forward.
So we hope that you have gotten a good feel about the project about our proposal and are excited and the reason why is that the next steps really are about you. The process of community engagement is one that we're not just talking about. It's not just a box to be checked. It's something that both of our teams have as a part of our DNA. As I mentioned, this is community development and real estate development done with the community, not only the community, and we have a very well established plan for how we're going to accomplish that. In our personal work urban oasis development. Just recently we worked on a project and are unfolding a project in Capitol view with another partner through that many of those neighbors have seen us do community engagement real time. This is an example of a project that we're going to take and redevelop 1000 square foot building, we activated as an adaptive reuse project at two floors of affordable housing above it, but what's going to be in that space, right? That's what we wanted the neighbors to unfold. And so we're very excited that that process included in person Yes, in person meetings. It was meetings for all of the family we were going to be very intentional that this is not just about adults. This is about your whole family. And so even if the mother there in the picture was giving us feedback, the young girl is giving feedback potentially as well. We had a lot of younger kids that were involved in the process and little stations. And so we're very excited that as we're designing this Murphy's crossing site, that it is designed for everybody across all of the age groups, as well. So get your kids ready to be a part of this process.
And the framework by which we're looking at doing this is one that's three fold. Yes, it includes those in person meetings and workshops. Some of you have been a part of that and in a variety of other settings, including possibly the Murphy crossing RFP. Those are feedback sessions designed to engage stakeholder groups general public groups, as well as specific groups like the business community specifically that we'll be working with that leads to kind of these family friendly design Charettes workshops and sessions whereby you can give feedback you can introduce and we can listen to what types of things that you want to see happen. All of that is being done as a part of both in person and there will still be remote and virtual sessions as well. Number two is ongoing feedback. We know everybody can't make it every time. So we're going to do a lot of online outreach, a lot of surveys you all had some polls that day. Well that's going to allow for everybody to continue to give feedback even those who may not be aware we'll be posting things like our presentations on the site so that others can visit with view and give feedback there is a dedicated microsite website that will be living and breathing for a lot of this data and email distribution lists which we are already starting to collect names and folks that we will be outreaching to as well as of course, as I mentioned, live zoom and video recordings that will be available. The third piece is something that not many of you maybe have been a part of on site activation before construction. What does that look like? That means taking a 22 acre site that many of us, including me have looked at for far too long, and envisioning what can we do today? While we're planning out the tomorrow that includes involving pop up events with small local businesses, particularly black and brown businesses can be a part of including volunteer events and other interactive art projects or activities. And also, of course, once again, family and kin friendly initiatives that can be enacted on the site, all while we're designing this is called doing while planning. It's something that we feel very excited about. And each one of these frameworks are ones that us along with code the SEC has already done in the past. So let's look at how that has been done. So in Coda sec, Tempe, they actually were involved very heavily in what was called the Smith bike lane project. This was a project that is a part of the community engagement included the team going door to door to do canvassing and outreach to local businesses, community leaders to ensure that they were part of the conversations around a bike lane that would spur economic development, and more equitable transportation opportunities. From that came lots of feedback comments and expedited public approval process and 2 million for design and safety improvements. Next, as it relates to the online outreach and surveys, the Escalante and a leg raid neighborhoods which are the direct neighborhoods around the cosec Tempe site. I've been there once again. I've visited as Sarah mentioned, a much more predominantly Hispanic Latino population, but very similar in every other respect to a lot of the neighborhoods Oakland City historic a deer park, you know, Capitol view, West End around Murphy's crossing. And so they were very intentional, intentional about surveys that really get to the heart of what these neighbors these residents were looking for. And that illuminated things like food deserts. Yep, Tempe has food deserts as well. And so they understood that that was going to be an important piece of what they would have to do affordable on site marketplaces and healthy foods in addition to that, how to incorporate the design of the local market to be inclusive of things like snap and EBT benefits, even for the fresh produce and how to ensure that a percentage a significant percentage of the overall set of goods in the market would be fresh produce and healthy foods. And then finally, that third framework, which is the on site activation before construction, isn't is really exemplified through a program called Little Choya, which I had an opportunity to visit. This was 16 markets done weekly over the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, whereby over 21, micro retailers, local vendors, food trucks, etc. had an opportunity to participate in a weekly market on the construction site, this body and neighbors and residents to start seeing how it looks to do commerce. It enabled these retailers 50% of which were minority and women owned businesses to transact real commerce, including 29,000 and small business sales. And it also started reengage in the community around a gathering place that eventually would be a permanent place. I will tell you, it's something that blew my mind and the opportunity to do that. On the Murphy crossing site while we're planning is one that I think everybody will really be excited about. In addition, there has been a lot of partnership with nonprofits, local groups, student groups, chambers of commerce and others. And so we hope that you will bring that into the fold as we enact a similar project here.
And of course, I always like to tell people, whatever you're going to do tomorrow, just show me you're doing today, and that's what builds trust for me. Well, this past weekend, we've already started engaging our community at the local level in historic Adair Park, shout out to my neighborhood. We had our annual Portus and pies festival Codasyl urban oasis and our partners had a table there. It was a great opportunity to really engage some of you in face to face conversations get you signed up on our list as well as affiliated and associated with our microsite, and even to engage councilmember Lewis and his team on what we're about to unfold. And so we're very excited that that's just the beginning. We're looking forward to continuing those conversations. And that actually begins not just today, but continues very near term. So even though we're doing this to debt, tonight's session is a virtual session. And we know it's very important. I'm so happy to see 170 140 50 No, no telling how many at this point, but we understand that some folks this is not the best mechanism right zoom technology remote, and so we're gonna have our first in person opportunity on October 6, that's going to be on a Thursday night. Go ahead and mark your calendar. Go ahead and let your friends or your neighbors know you will have an opportunity to see this information in person and to interact with us then throughout and as we proceed through October in the remaining months. We were going to be unfolding, an ongoing plan and a regular plan of how the rest of the community engagement process and schedule will go. Once again that will include a variety of working group sessions with smaller groups, main public meeting groups, and we're very excited that that will allow each of you to continue to be a part of this story. In addition, as you can see, there's a website QR code there for those who are more technically inclined, please get that website on Bookmark. You can both sign up and register your email to be a part of the ongoing conversation. But also this is going to be that living breathing site whereby a lot of information is going to be posted and ongoing connectedness. So with that we really appreciate you all being here this evening participating with us in this conversation. We're excited and thankful that that beltline team believed in what we were doing and felt that it was connected with what many of you were looking for, and at this time we certainly want to open it up for that conversation to continue via questions.
Thank you so much, Sara, thank you so much, Joel. What a presentation. Well, like we stated at the beginning of the meeting, we're gonna go ahead and try to get to as many live questions as time permits. We do have a big group so we may not be able to address every question live. Don't worry if we don't get to your question, we're going to follow up with a written document addressing it so we will address everything either tonight or in the very near future. We've found that the turnaround time for this document is based off the number of unanswered questions okay, but you can check our website@beltline.org forward slash meetings. And anytime we don't get to all the questions we do post that document there. Now keep in mind that our audience tonight is made up of both zoom online and phone attendees as well as Facebook Live attendees. So let's just quickly go over how we can all contribute to this conversation. So if you've called in on your phone, and what I mean is, you have dialed the numbers on your keypad, not like an app on your phone. What you want to do is if you want to ask a question, you're gonna hit star nine on your on your telephone keypad and this basically shows me that you've raised your hand right like if you're at a public meeting, you have raised your hand I'm taking a look around the room for people who have raised their hand and when I say it, I will work you into the conversation. And I'll hit a little button on my side and you're going to hear in your earpiece, a prompt telling you to hit star six and once you once you do that you've unmuted yourself the floor is yours. Ask your question or make your comment. Okay, so that's that's our our folks have called in on the phone. Now, if you're on the Zoom platform, so you're in the Zoom online platform. You can submit a question anytime we have a q&a box I really appreciate everybody respecting the q&a box and waiting until we got to this point in the agenda. But one of the nice things about putting your question or comment the q&a box is you can also interact with other people you can upvote a response. You can go into answered questions and make additional comments and we have not limited you from raising your hand. So if you want to verbalize your question you can do so. I'm just letting you know I'm going to prioritize the people who have called it right because they don't have that q&a box so we'll try to work everyone in this will have a way as possible. Okay. Now, way out there in Facebook land. You are part of this conversation. We have a member of our staff doing our best and their best to address any questions you have. In the case of which they can't address a question they want to elevate it to the larger group. They will drop it in our q&a as as quote unquote Facebook Live. We will work that into cycle working everybody else in and at that point it can be uploaded etc. So that is the quick, quick overview of the format for tonight. So thank you for allowing me to get through there. I'm now looking at the q&a. And we have about 12 questions. So let's go ahead and get this going. We got about a little over a half an hour So, Jay Lawrence Good to see you or hear from you. The 60 to 80% Ami expectations is nice but average AMI for the EMA is 84 A year 84,000 A year average income the five neighborhoods surrounding this development is $27,000 At what point will you reach out to invest Atlanta for support to possibly reduce the residential AMI to 40 to 60% ami. So I will leave that out to Dennis and or members. Of the cul de sac group.
You want to address that?
Yeah, yeah. I think that that's an appropriate question for for us as the development team based on the conversation and Lawrence, thank you so much for raising that question. It's something that we're very familiar with. So I literally look at not just the AMI number that the general number that everybody uses. I actually look at a better number which was done by the Atlanta Regional Council that does things by Census Tract, neighborhood by neighborhood, what is the what is the area median income? I have that chart I have that information? Yes, we're very aware that 60 to 80% AMI is still a great number to hit. It reaches a ton of folks that need also attainable housing. But we are looking forward to continuing the conversations with invest Atlanta, Atlanta BeltLine and other groups that can provide subsidies that will allow us to look at even deeper levels of affordability. However, this does get back Lawrence to one of the other conversation pieces I mentioned, which is what would happen to a 60% Ami number. If you were reducing that households transportation costs by half or eliminating it altogether. It completely changes the conversation. Because now since you you've already made that person be able to attain an even higher level of housing technically, but also you're essentially providing housing that is almost like a 30% Ami number just by looking at the total household. So just now we are hopeful that you are able to support us as we look at additional subsidies with invest Atlanta and others, but we do believe that we're starting with a very strong base case that's not just about the affordability of the units, but about reducing overall household expenses.
Thank you, Joe. We're gonna try to combine a couple of questions here related to timeline. So I'll read a couple here and we'll kind of piece them together. After that we're gonna go to a phone caller, expected completion date. So that's when when is this thing actually done? Also a sense as to the different development phases and the timing of those phases over the life of the project. I also had a question in here about when a concept site plan would be available to the public. Excuse me, and it get curious how the pedestrian and bike focus actually shakes out so that's probably enough for now. So let's talk about timeline a little bit, Joel.
Yeah, absolutely. And just so everybody, just to reinforce is the joint venture developer with codeset. urban oasis development is a part of this team as a joint venture. A lot of the things that I'll answer are because we've been working alongside them actively. But this is a team wide commitment. So when we talk about and look at, you know, kind of these conversations, we're really thinking about the fact that the site plan is going to come as a part of the community engagement process. We actually do have a site plan and we may be able to show a little bit of it, but the main goal is that we want to unfold the site plan with you. As we mentioned, 40% of that site is already designated and designed to be green space. You know, a large percentage of that is designated to be housing, affordable housing, but also you're talking about 300,000 square feet of commercial office retail. And so a part of the ongoing conversation is that the site plan that we show is very preliminary and designed to be developed right as we go along. So I can't say that enough because I'm a resident. I've been in Atlanta ways in Atlanta. I know how we look at site plans, and how up in arms we can get sometimes. And so just know that we're showing it, we will make it it will be available, but it is something that we hope everybody will take with once again a large grain of salt, but that everything that we've mentioned in terms of its accessibility, its sustainability is pedestrian and people first aspect is absolutely a part of that.
Great and just, I mean, I felt like you've kind of addressed it, but I'm just trying to knock off a couple more of these questions here about a shovel on the ground. When will it be complete? Can we temper those expectations as well?
You know, honestly, I want to temper the expectations. But we want to do both things right, which is I've been looking at this site to for seven years with nothing happening. So there's nobody who believes that they want to see some dirt start turning in some samples in the ground more than ourselves. We want that to happen as soon as possible. We need you all to help us do that. Once again, this community engagement process is designed to enable a finalized site plan that will allow us to do a zoning application that will then allow us to actually know what to put in the ground, right, like how to present a shovel. So a lot of that is going to be dependent on all of us, right? How long it takes us to get through this process so that we can actually be able to get a building permit to actually go in the ground. So I want you all to know I make this full full promise as a team is that we will go as fast as possible within the constraints of the process, but we do not control the process. And so with that, you know, stay tuned.
That's fair enough, Joel, let's go to a phone caller. This is going to be the number ending in six to six, five. You should be being prompt right now to unmute yourself by hitting star six. Great looks like you're unmuted The floor is yours.
Hello, good evening, gentlemen. And ladies, this is Janie mills. I live three doors away from Joel and I've been delighted to have him and his family as a neighbor. I have lived in Adair Park in my house since 1940. accurate numbers not only am I a less legacy, resident of a deer park, by profession and college training is historic preservation. So when historic preservation is spoken of become more engaged than I would otherwise and you have a historic site or to the city of Atlanta in terms of context of industrial history as well as agricultural history. I highly highly, highly encourage all parties involved in this project to investigate the possibilities, the historic district tax credits. This comes out of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. base tax credits have been used to great advantage by developers such as a Jamison who did pond City Market. There is Newport developers which have purchased 12 city blocks downtown Atlanta round the courthouse and running best of the courthouse as well as someone east and south of the courthouse. They will be using on their 12 city blocks. They started tax credits as well as other projects literally on the ground in Adair Park. They their elementary school, now known as the Los Atomy loss was redeveloped from a very very distressed situation using the tax credits to their great financial advantage. Same thing for the project that will be that has been completed for the apartment units at the corner of University in Boston Parkway or low income housing. Columbia residential, they use the tax credit on that project that another one in more or less on the ground and yet to be, well, it's already started. It's an Abrams fixture building which sounds extreme north end of a deer park and we have any number of individual homeowners which have used tax credits but just as a severely brief scan of utilization as the tax credits. I highly highly, highly encourage all parties involved in this development to investigate and I will not take the time at this in this meeting to go into further detail. But I would certainly like to meet with Joe and will lay and other parties probably only in a different setting. And I can give you further information on this. Thank you oh by the way before I forget, your project is not in Mr. Lewis's district. You are in the district for Jason Dozier does your day. So good. To have Mr. Lewis in this conversation, but this is not in his district. Neither is your project in a deer park, West or West End. It is in Oakland City.
Thank you. Well, I know that Miss Jenny and I appreciate it miss Jeanne, I appreciate you joining the call. There's a lot more that could be said there. But I know there are other questions. Just a couple of things to piggyback off of starting with the last points. Once again we have both city council members who are representative of all of the neighborhoods surrounding this site. But as was mentioned earlier, that it was first council member Jason Dozier who spoke and for those who did not hear So earlier, and also we mentioned during our presentation that this site is directly in Oakland City. So we're very familiar familiar in terms of the locations of things however, I also want everybody to be clear. This is a district level development. This impacts all of us. We're going to be respectful of the district MPU as well as neighborhood that it's in, but I'm very excited that when I saw the neighborhood's pop up Sylvan Hills was heavily represented tonight alongside historic a deer park and open city. I hope that continues because all of you are a part of this conversation. Miss Janie, that historic aspect of things is one we're looking forward to continuing the conversation with you on and we're certainly going to be a part of preserving as many of those buildings as possible. Thank you so much.
All right. Thank you, Joe. The next question is will the streets that are proposed to be public? Somebody from the team will address that.
Yeah, this short, short answer is yes, these are public streets. So it's being designed as a development that is going to be a public facing and base development. Now, of course, we always want to preface that with the site plan is unfolding. And as you know, sub streets are being created. And obviously the final plan is being developed, you know, TBD whether 100% of every single street, but as proposed the design did incorporate these being public streets once again, pedestrian friendly streets that really bleed into a multi mobility set of options. privatize this development site.
Thank you Joe. I'm gonna do my best to combine some mobility questions. If you're sorting for the team if you're sorting things towards the top of the queue by most upvotes you'll see I'll start with Jeffrey here. Our community is about to grow significantly following the addition of bike lanes and Murphy and Sylvan avenues and the removal of turn lanes. The flow of traffic has been severely hindered. The CSX train will also while also cuts access to Murphy crossing. How is this group planning to plan planning to plan for the access to in from the property but 1000s of new residents visitors in their cars but unreal is not a short term viable option. I'll stop there. That's a lot.
Jill does you want to give that one a shot or somebody else from the call the tech team. Just talk about our multi modal approach here that we're looking at.
Yeah, absolutely. And so I so I know that our code a second says some folks are probably going to jump in and hop in here. I will start out with this. The multi modal approach to this site is really looking at how we as pedestrians individuals residents, get around our city. Arguably, this is a key site to allow for the maximum set of multimodal opportunities, whether that's walkability between the neighborhoods to this site, how do we make it more pedestrian friendly? Trust me, I am one of those pedestrians. It is very difficult to get back in through and across different sides of the site currently, and use certain streets especially if you're coming from other neighborhoods that have to cross the street. All of these are aspects that are not just on us as the development team. These involve other city agencies, Atlanta DLT, Georgia DLT. So please continue to be part of those conversations because we need your voices within the site itself. We're unfolding a project however, where pedestrians are going to be celebrated, where cyclists will have opportunity and options to both get to the site and get around the site that there will be opportunities for accessing transit which once again, there's a lot of conversations. We have Oakland City Marta station that is off of a proposed beltline spur that we feel should be happening ASAP and we want to be a part of that conversation and the solution. We have of course the Beltline that is just below the site that already exists there how transit gets included on that site, we hope will be a part of the conversation. Our main goal is to ensure however, that we're creating a true transit oriented development pedestrian and multimodal site that will encourage all of those additional transit options to be amplified created and in the case of things like bike lanes, reinforced and protected. And so hopefully that's you know, answers it in a bit however, this is a conversation for all of us. We're simply creating the right plans to enable it, but we will need a lot of your voices to be a part of that conversation.
Right Thank you, Joe. All right, the next question, I'm trying to move around the q&a a little bit here from different voices on different subjects here. So the next question is going to be I lost it, it moved around me here. Here it is. Well, there'll be training opportunities for residents to get that the needed skills for jobs and careers that are coming to the community.
Great question. So, yes, as a part of the actual RFP itself, there's definitely an emphasis on workforce development workforce. Training, were mentioning about the opportunities that will exist. But one of the things that we're also going to be intentional about is how we provide and prepare everyone to be a part of that inclusion. I will say that we're going to be working to continue to partner with workforce development programs. Obviously there's some that are very well known with the city with the state, but also other organizations that may be less known. We partner with the guild on a project and they've done a tremendous amount of workforce development training. I'm certainly aware of right now that we're his partner with ABI as well as others and we look to include them in the conversation. One of the key components, though, is that there's plenty of opportunity for workforce development already, right down the street is Atlanta Technical Institute. And so we're not just talking about one type of job, but Atlanta Technical Institute, trains a variety of folks or enables folks to be trained we just need to make better usage of those graduates to now connect them to the opportunities for jobs that will exist on the site. And so once again, this is something that we're very excited to participate in. And if any of you on the call are connected in even ways to workforce development programs, this is what the my the website will be about as well an opportunity for you to send those suggestions and recommendations.
Thank you, Joe. There's a number of questions sort of around transit. I know you talked about transit oriented development and design. So rather than reading very long, sort of questions, can you talk to us generally about what it means to be ready for for high capacity and transit from a development and design standpoint?
So in regards to the just the repeat, high capacity transit to basically a site that enables, let's say, I mean, I'm just going to paraphrase a transit right transit on the Beltline transit on the Spurs? I'm, I'm answering from that framework. You know, I think a lot of it is that one, you have to have the transit, right, like we have to actually build it, we have to put it down and we have to enable it. The site design itself, and I think the Kota SEC Tempe site is perfect. It has a transit option that's running right in front of and alongside of the site. All they had to do was make it possible for people to utilize it safely and quickly via the appropriate crossings, crosswalks and walkability of the site. And then of course, have people come there to be living. And so I think that as a development team, that's one of the key things that we're focused on is that the infrastructure is technically there. We just need to build the actual transit to enable it and that includes access to the transit that already exists. I can't emphasize enough Open City Marta station is right now one of the best opportunities for us to connect Murphy's crossing directly to transit opportunities today, the transit that should go on the BeltLine, which we fully support as well. It takes time and that's something that needs to start also as soon as possible. But we don't just have one opportunity for transit in this particular region. We actually have multiple and so I hope that not just our site being developed, but the entire city and others will join alongside to enable that and that's why having councilmember Jason Dozier and Antonio Lewis on the call is extremely important, because you all are able to help encourage the transit to come today. The site plans are already enabling of when that transit is there for people to get on and get off and access the site. So I'm very excited that this is the type of design that Coda sac excels Excel Zan has already been doing. And so we don't need to overthink it. We just need to create the actual transit that will enable and empower folks to better take advantage of the site that's being designed for
it. Thank you, Joe. What we're gonna do this time is I'm gonna ask the members of the team just feel free to go in and type answers to any questions that you see that are still open in the q&a. So once you start typing, you'll be committed to that question, and we will include any type of answers in a report that will most definitely be generated for our website. So the next question is, with regards to proximity to Pittsburgh yards and Lee and white Street, have you addressed the concern of the competition between the sites so close together? I would love to see development between all three sites
Yeah, and I'm gonna happen here and also while I'm doing this, I do want a member of CO desex team to tee up because I want to give going back to that previous question, an example of how it was enacted that transit the bike lanes on the Tempe site so I'm going to answer this current question, but whomever wants to hop in, be ready after that. I'm very excited about the question that was asked about how to connect in a regionally significant way to already established developments, Pittsburgh yards which to me was one of the best projects that's ever been done. It's a community centered development I'm a member of it. And I'm excited that exists there, Lee and white, which was the first real development of any sort brought to this side of town. I think the great opportunity is that we think regionally and interconnected, I will tell you that we're affiliated with every one of those developers I know acronym very well. I know. Pittsburgh ers Annie Casey Foundation, who's the owner very well. We look forward to having the conversations that will allow us to understand how connected we are as sites and how if we do things in a collaborative fashion, we're not all doing the same thing. The Annie Casey site site which is currently the Pittsburgh yards, phase one portion of it is a 30 acre site. It is an I mix dedicated site. It is a jobs only dedicated site there will be no housing based on their original plans on that site. When you have 30 acres of complete jobs and economic development right next to our site that allows for nice, give and take whereby we can continue to do economic development, but we're not responsible for the whole load. They're going to need housing, all of those folks who want to be a part of those jobs at Pittsburg yard site. And so those are the conversations that we're having, likewise with Lee and white which is really being formulated as a traditional more like retail, some jobs, right that you've introduced a number of new jobs that are coming to that site, but primarily its retail focus. And so how do we connect the dots to the type of retail that they're already envisioning and bringing and then we therefore add the additional type of retail and the diversity of job types that may be neither of those sites can do independently and there are other sites adjacent further south. We have, you know, the future Fort McPherson development, and so we are very intentional and understanding of all of the things happening there, how we fit within that, and we hope that as we do the site plan, we will all continue that conversation because it is very important that if we think regionally and collaborate, we will create something very significant not just on Murphy's crossing, but throughout the region. And so with that, I'll open up the question related back to the transit and how Codasyl was really able to execute on both the transit as well as the biking in Tempe
Hi, I cannot take that one. Yeah, so called a sec Tempe, we will be giving all of our residents Valley Metro platinum passes, which gives everybody free rides on the entire metro systems. We really want to encourage using transit for all of our residents. And in addition to giving people access to the actual passes themselves, we will be working with the city to create a dedicated crosswalk between the call detect cul de sac Tempe site and that light rail station that's kind of right outside of our front door just to make it even easier and safer for folks to travel to and from culdesac via the light rail. And then finally we are very passionate about improving surrounding infrastructure. So we are working as well with the city on protected bike lane on the streets, public streets surrounding cul de sac.
Thank you, Jasmine. Let's talk about historic reuse or adaptive reuse. Excuse me, at what point we decide what buildings are going to be retained and or adaptively. reused.
Yeah, this is Joe and one of the things I want to tee up Eric Kronberg as well. In particular after I introduced this because adaptive reuse of projects once again there's the historic and passion white side of things, but then there are other portions of this which is okay. Feasibility costing as Miss jeanne was talking about historic tax credits which can be used to kind of navigate how expensive something can be. That is important. However, there are some things that even historic tax credits can't cover the difference of just because of the building type. However, the other part is that is we're working with the community on a true site plan. There are sometimes some differences between density and the ability to preserve every type of building so you can preserve a building space, but then if you can't do it as much density on that space, then you might give up certain other things, housing being one of those and so it really does require a lot of a comprehensive conversation, not just a one off, but I want Eric to just give a little bit insights because, number one, it's an architect's, he's worked on some of the most phenomenal projects of adaptive reuse. It's something that they do very well. And so Eric, with that, I open it up to
Sure. Thank you, Joel. So my comment is like, we just hit it up. Well, it's all about trade offs. And what we're trying to do is figure out the best buildings to save to have the biggest really bang for the buck in terms of placemaking and historic fabric and respect and inclusion. And then looking at buildings that you know, may be better served to go away and some you know, you can't save everything. Or we wouldn't have any other stuff for the love of like affordable housing or otherwise. So it is a balancing act and our mission and goal is to figure out the best buildings to save and there's definitely some really good ones on the site. So we're fully committed to it. But you know, again, I think just like Joel said, stay tuned. There's a lot of work we're gonna be rolling versus leaves and part of the conversation with community is really gonna be about talking about these trade offs, right because if you save this, you can't do that, or vice versa. So we want to make sure we get the best outcomes for that which we say.
Thank you, Eric. There's quite a few questions about courtyard style housing. So this is kind of a design question. Will there be the same type of housing Museum The former university homes? Can you speak a bit on court hard courtyard housing and 30% Ami housing? There's about four four or five questions like that if you guys would like to address those.
Yeah, absolutely. I can get started there. Having been a former John hook University Holmes resident, my understanding kind of the nature um, so for those who don't know, the university homes, John Hope homes. These were public housing projects that were built as more like two storey and one storey type. Walk up developments for multifamily housing at the time. It did include things like gazebo, every single kind of block had an actual gazebo that exists today. If you go to the villages of Castleberry. You will see those historic gazebo does actually exist. Those would also have been green spaces if we actually had green grass around them. At the time. So that was unfortunate. However, a lot of the nature that comes back to are we going to have missing middle housing, the type of variety of housing that exists and has existed throughout Atlanta in the past and I can answer with a resounding yes when we talk about urban design principles which say or alluded to earlier a part of that is that we need density, and so that will lead to higher taller buildings, but they will also be mixed in lower level of buildings. Once again, it's all about trade offs for every lower level or missing middle type housing structure we provide. It does enable for diversity of housing type, but we are giving up some density. And so once again, as the site planning with the community unfolds, that's the trade offs that we're all going to be committing to understand and accept. But I can tell you to that question, that it is something that we're actively looking at considering and have been doing. In fact, on the Tempe location, I can tell you that there are very much those type of structures there.
And then Joe, I'll just add on the design side, we've been QA working with cul de sac to look at the courtyards in Tempe are amazing. They're great spaces, great buildings, but they're not I'd say the MISC tempIes climate is not a lands climate. So we've been working hard to look at, you know how you take that great courtyard, sell housing there and calibrate it for Atlanta. So for us, it's a lot of porches. It's a lot of balconies, lot of outdoor spaces connected, it's a different climate. And we're really excited to have that calibrated for our place here.
Right, well, time really flew here tonight. 757. So we are running just a little behind. But let's do our best to get everybody out of here on time. That was our last question of the evening. So to close out the meeting, I have a few additional polling questions. If we do not get to your question though, we are going to create a q&a report and post that online at the end at org forward slash meetings, I see 31 unanswered questions. We may even group them to get you guys the most comprehensive questions. So let's get into this polling. So as I started to polish and see the question pop up on the screen. I'll read this out loud so that everybody can hear it and the first question is, was the information presented tonight helpful in changing your perception and understanding of the Beltline project? So have 97 people in the room? Answer quickly and we'll get you out of here as close to eight o'clock as possible. Let's go ahead and lock that in. We hit about 56 responses 42 Let's say 75% of them said yes. 13% No and 30%. No opinion, please feel free to follow up with engage at ATL beltline.org. We'll put that in the chat. Next question. Did you learn something new? Yes, no. Perhaps you need some more information. The poll is now open. Sponsors are flying in. And we're getting up to about 60 out of 93 things have slowed a bit we'll go ahead and lock things in here at about 64 responses, yes. 75% No 6% and need more clarity. 19%. So again, in the chat, we're putting engaged at ATL belen.org Please email that simple address with your questions and what you need more clarity on and we'll do our best in fact, we I mean, we will get back to you. We'll do our best to try to provide that clarity. So the next and last question of the evening as we approach eight o'clock is how you would like to be communicated with what are your preferred method or methods of communication. So email, social media, automated phone call text messages, US postal mailing. If you have another idea you can put in the q&a. We do a lot of different outreach methods. We have about 56 of 90 participants. We'll lock that one in and a strong showing for email, social media, and also a strong showing for text messages which we've used as well in the past. We have some support for automated phone calls and also US postal mailings. So that was our last question of the evening. So a lot of information that was shared tonight, but this is a very exciting project and in many ways you really are just at the beginning. We're excited for the team to continue the community engagement to kind of pass the baton and take the lead. But ABI will continue to be here in a support role support Joel and Sarah and the whole team. We're looking forward to seeing where this goes. So thank you for your time this evening and thank you for all the future engagement expect to see at Have a great night and we'll see you on the Beltline.