The natives are restless in Home Depot’s home town. A citzen’s group called the Northwest Community Alliance (NCA) has been fighting a plan to build a Home Depot on an old hotel property close to downtown Atlanta. According to this week’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Home Depot plan “hit a snag” when the developer announced that their contract to acquire the former Castlegate Hotel has turned into a pumpkin. This was good news to the NCA, which has raised the issue of traffic congestion and the impact of the mixed use project on nearby residential property values. The developer wants to build a 2 story retail complex, with a 114,000 s.f. Home Depot on the first floor. The complex would also add 300 apartments to the local community. Home Depot had little to say about the “snag”, but told the newspaper that “you still could assume some interest” in the Castlegate site. According to the NCA, the property owner is now shopping the land to other buyers, because the asking price for the land seems to be the sticking point. “Be it Home Depot or another developer,” said Michael Koblentz, Chair of the NCA, “traffic is becoming more and more of a nightmare in the area.”
Atlanta, Georgia, the home of the Orange Crush, has more Home Depot’s per capita than most communities. So it is not surprising that neighborhood activists see little reason to keep cramming more big box traffic into overcrowded streets. A number of home state communities have fought this company hammer and tong. This battle to keep Home Depot out of the Castlegate site will not be over until the fat company sings. At this point, a slow-down is most welcomed by the neighborhood Alliance, as they continue to try to make the development more compatible in scale and purpose with the rest of the nearby land uses. For more details on the opposition to Home Depot on its Atlanta turf, contact info@sprawl-busters.com, and see entries below for other Home Depot conflicts.
