The board of NPU-B has recommended approval of the rezoning of the former site of the Garden Hills Shopping Center for a 135,000-square-foot mixed-use development that would include mostly offices.
Brand Properties proposes a 135-foot-tall building on the property at 2839 Peachtree Road that would include one to two levels of shops or restaurants and five levels of office space on its Peachtree frontage. Brand hopes to start work on the project next summer, President Michael Hoath said.
The building will be on property that once was home to the Garden Hills Cinema and adjacent shops. The shopping center was destroyed by fire in 2013.
After consultation with nearby residents, including those in the neighboring Garden Hills community, the company scaled back its proposal from eight levels to seven and moved the building forward on the property, toward Peachtree, Hoath said. Hoath said the developers had held 25 meetings with groups interested in the project.
“We’re going to be good neighbors,” he told the NPU-B board. “We’ve made a considerable number of concessions.”
Residents of the next-door Alhambra condominium continue to the object to some aspects of the project. The condo board asked NPU-B board members to require the building to be designed “to keep the current transitional height plane intact” so as not to block the light and view of some condo owners. It also asked that NPU-B board recommend removal of a driveway onto Peachtree.
The NPU-B board did not add those restrictions to the plan, but did recommend that the developer monitor the effects of construction on the historic condominium.
The proposal now goes to the city’s Zoning Review Board.