Caleb Racicot Presents Final Plan for GM Plant and Doraville
Caleb Racicot, a Senior Principal at TSW, recently presented the final plan and recommendations for the Livable Centers Initiative study that examines redevelopment opportunities for the General Motors Plant and Doraville town center area.
For more information on the project, www.tswdesign.co/doraville/
From WABE FM:
New Plans for Doraville GM Plant
Martha Dalton
(2011-03-07)Doraville city officials presented a proposal for the abandoned General Motors plant to the city council this week. The plan would turn the site into a mixed-use development, which city leaders hope will bring jobs to the area. WABE’s Martha Dalton reports.
The Atlanta Regional Commission funded a study of the site to come up with ideas for revitalizing the area. Luke Howe is Doraville’s manager for the project:
“It’s about keeping it a major employment center, adding some homes, particularly mixed-income housing clustered around the MARTA station, and creating public space.”
The biggest challenge right now, Howe says, is finding a developer to invest in the plant. But if the city council approves the proposal when they vote in two weeks he says
“We can start doing peripheral work, like say the bike trails, so we can do things like that and kind of envelop the site with good, quality growth.”
Howe says cultivating the surrounding areas could attract a developer. He says, depending on state funding, redeveloping the site could create as many as 21-thousand jobs.
From Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Doraville presents final plan for GM plant, town center
By Joel Anderson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, March 3, 2011In an exhaustively detailed master plan, the shuttered General Motors assembly plant will someday become a bustling development with big-box retail, cafes, office space, townhouses and maybe even a recreational center.
The project also will offer a vibrant town center, pedestrian bridges, light-rail stations and Bubbling Creek Park, the latter a seven-acre space with a spring and a pond.
To get started, the Doraville City Council will need to approve it all — and soon.
Planning professionals and city officials laid out their long-term vision for Doraville on Wednesday night, making a formal presentation of the city’s downtown master plan as part of the Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) program. The presentation was held at the Doraville Civic Center, drawing about 30 interested residents and local officials.
Following the presentation, the plan was roundly greeted with praise and optimism.
“This could be a new day for Doraville,” said Merle Evans, who has lived in the Oakcliff section of town since 1963. “I hope that I’m alive to see it. I just hope that we can develop the leadership necessary to develop the plans.”
If the Doraville City Council approves a measure to adopt the plan at its March 21 meeting, a proposed connector between Buford Highway and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard will make it onto a list of projects under consideration for a transportation tax referendum slated for 2012.
While a number of city officials have been enthusiastic about the plan, some council members haven’t committed to the project.
“I think we’ll have an opportunity to take a look at some components and decide how we’ll proceed,” said council member Brian Bates, who couldn’t attend the presentation because of a prior engagement. “I haven’t had a chance to really study it. But from a concept basis, I think it is moving in absolutely the right direction.”
The Atlanta Regional Commission has funded a study of Doraville through its LCI program in an effort to generate ideas for redeveloping the area and distributing funds for transportation projects. If the city council approves the plan, the commission will help the city implement the plan in earnest.
