Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

f S V! ATLANTA’S NEXT SKYSCRAPER—HURT BUILDING COMING OF LEGISLATURE OF HURT OFFICE BUILDING Leading Citizens Will Make Occasion Memo rable—One Thousand People to Find Home In Latest Skyscraper—What It Takes to Erect a Structure Seventeen Stories in Air. Hurrah for Joel Hurt, master buil der of Atlanta! His fireproof, tor nado-proof, earthquake-proof office building: at Edgewood Avenue and Exchange place will be finished and ready for occupancy October 1st. En ter 1,000 tenants from somewhere and commercial Atlanta will hp,ve taken another giant stride forward! Will this be the last office building that is needed in Atlanta? Will the field be overcrowded .and snug offices go begging for the want of tenants? Will the giant Healey Building opposite the postoffice stand vacant? Ask Mr. Hurt! Ask Mr*. Healey! These captains of industry will laugh softly: then they will explain. They wdll tell how hosts of tenants have already' been seeking office space* Business men are constantly moving upstairs, the theory' being that the atmosphere is better up in the clouds than it is down in the “storm cel lar.” Whether Atlanta’s office build ing population ever gets any higher or not, the fact remains the same that they find pleasure and profit in their sky scraper homes. Every’ con vert to the office building idea auto matically' becomes a staunch booster for the city. Steel Work Celebration. There is an earlier date in the af fairs of the Hurt Building. This is May 15th, when it is calculated all the steel work will be finished. The steel girders are going up just as fast as huge derricks can carry them and nimble fingers can place and rivet them. Four stories a week from on will be the rate of progress 1 In this particular and important de partment of the job. Then in May Mr. Hurt will call off his workmen for a little w'hile, to celebrate the completion of steel frame-work as an epoch-making event in the life of the structure. Again in October there* wdll bo a public celebration, but ! this time it will be more auspicious, and townsmen gathered round wdll be glad. Another office building wdll be opened for business among sister office buildings. When a battleship is launched in the seaport towns, the people flock by the thousands to wit ness the sight, and Mr. Hurt intends that when his office building is “launched,” a representative group of Atlantans shall be present to wish her well. There will be many people blocking Edgew'ood Avenue and Ex change Place, and their chosen lead ers will regale them with fitting ora tory. Harking Backward, ■When Mr. Hurt’s dream of an of fice- building for Atlanta came true in 1891 in the erection of the Equita ble Building, structures of this siae and height were considered curiosi ties in the South. They did not ex ist. Hence the completion of the Equitable was the occasion for a cu rious gathering, like a circus come to 1 a country town. Now the feeling of j curiosity has changed to a feeling of civic pride, and it is in this spirit that the people of Atlanta wdll attend ! Mr. Hurt’s latest “party.” The Hurt Building Is no more a cause of wonder than the separate! units in the community of structures of which it is one, unless its unique architecture is to be con sidered as a tc."w apart from the j building itself. It is a future throb bing reality which is to pulsate with the life of a thousand pigmy soulsj wrapped up in its broad confines. • Hard to Describe. The inside story of an office build ing. with all its wonderful mechani cal devices and the vast amount of labor, time and money that its parts represent, has never been perfectly told. Like the giant battleship in thi making, it is impossible of ideal de scription. The cumbersome masses of iron and steel, the power of lifting machines, the resounding w'hacks w’hich the unresisting metals of na ture fling back at little man in his feeble attempts to pierce and shape them—all these are awe-inspiring in the extreme. The pedestrian who stops long enough before the Hurt Building skeleton finds out that this is true. The constant clank, clank of ham mers on steel, the noisy exhaust of engines used to lift heavy things, the whirr of wheels going round at a thousand revolutions a minute are a convincing reminder that the’ witness is in the very heart of the steaming city. Seventeen Stories High. Figures in the office of Building In spector Ed R. Hays show that the Hurt Building is to cost $700,000 and be 17 stories high. The cost will run above this figure, maybe to $800,- 000, before Mr. Hurt is done paying his bills. The building will be lo cated in the apex of the little trian gle bounded by Edgewood Avenue and Exchange Place, and will be ex tended at some future time to cover the entire block, the other boundary street being Ivy. Some 125 men are at work on the building, and the number will be Increased lat er. Several thousands of people in shops about the country are working on various features of the job. Pay rolls are $5,000 a w r eek, which is over five times what President Wilson gets for handling things at Washing ton. Proof Against the Elements. The steel in the Hurt Building is designed to withstand high wind and earthquake disturbances. Such a ca lamity as recently happened in Oma- PEACHTREE LOTS AT HIT STREET So Predicts W. P. Walthall, Well Known Realty Man, Looking Forward a Year. That Peachtree property as far north as the Ivy Street Junction wdll go to $2,000 a front foot in a year; that the interurban railway line to Macon wdll start in the neighborhood of Ivy and Gilmer Streets; and via ducts be built over the railroad tracks at Pryor Street and Central Avenue is the prediction of W. P. Walthall, of the Forrest and George Adair Real Estate Agency. Mr. Walthajl is known as one of the best-posted real estate men in the city and State. He writes most of the adver tisements for the Adair Agency, and a large following looks regularly for his clear-cut real estate philosophy. Here are some of Mr. Walthall’s reflections and predictions, written in the style that has made a name for him: "Truly time is the mother of won ders. Who would have dreamed a few r years ago of the things that have happened In Atlanta?* Who would have Imagined that Peachtree, the peerless residence street of the South, W'ould in such a short time be aban doned as far out as Ponce DeLeon? Anyone w’ho would have made such a prediction w’ould have been consid ered as wild as Cassandra. For this stronghold of wealth and fashion to be literally captured by commercial ism in a few short years is the mar vel of the real estate world! It shows how mutable are the works of man, how inevitable is the commer cial progress of cities. Destruction’s Compensations. “There is compensation in the de struction of Peachtree residentially, for as its desirability for home pur poses vanished the land rose rapidly in value. Fine residences, costing as much as $25,000, were ignored In the calculations of the value of proper ty-roll them around on the side! street or tear them down and use the material to build garages. Underly ing ground value went up so fast j that the cost of a modern residence w as absorbed and lost sight of. When frontage goes from $200 a foot up to $1,000, a foot there is such a wide margin that you can afford to ignore what the house cost. Such are changes that time has wrought on Peachtree; between Ellis Street and Ponce DeLeon Avenue. Of the own ers w r ho lived there a few years ago a very few remain. “It looks now’ as if Peachtree front age will go to $2,000 a foot out as far as the Ivy Street Junction. Next year's trading will likely carry the prices up to this figure. Certainly those lots which have a special ad vantage. either corners or those run ning to West Peachtree and Ivy Street, will go to $2,000 a foot. Wouldn't such a statement have sounded wild a few years ago? Well, we would never have made such a statement a few years ago, but now’ the way is clear. The little work done at Baker Street makes such a remarkable change in the appearance of things. It is, indeed, educational. Until recently Harris Street seemed way out, now’ in coming up Peach tree toward town you seem to be go ing right into the retail shopping dis trict at Harris. Ii all shows how the business district in Atlanta has spread out In the last few years. Joel Hurt’s Operations. “Is Peachtree the only section to talk about? Let us dip into the fu ture as far as human eye can see. A new factor has recently entered into the situation: the operations of Joel Hurt. From now on any serious dis cussion of the future of Atlanta real estate must take into- consideration these operations. Mr. Hurt has an nounced building improvements cost ing four million dollars, covering his entire holdings on Edgewood Avenue, Ivy Street, Exchange Place and Gil mer Stroets. The Auditorium sec tion, which now has the appearance of being disconnected from the cen ter, will be closely knitted up to the heart of the city by h high-class building development. The effect will be far-reaching. We are of the opin ion that .Edgewood Avenue frontage as far down asc Piedmont Avenue, will go to $1,000 a foot in next year's trading. Continued on Page 2, Column 3, “Right now’ there is a discrepancy in prices on Edgewood Avenue and the other four streets whose junction makes Five Points. The discrepancy can be seen by taking an arbitrary street number, for example, the num ber 100. On Edgewood Avenue No. 100 is about half way between Ivy and Courtland Streets and at this Peterses, Ansleys, Adairs and Riv erses Noted for Home Sites They Have Built. point values now run about $1,000 a foot. On Peachtree No. 100 would be at the Piedmont Hotel; on Mar ietta Street the same number would be at the Gas Building, and on Whitehall Street a little beyond the Chamberlin -Johnson-DuBoso Store. On the last-mentioned streets at No. 100 values range from $3,000 to $6,000 a foot. There wdll be a tendency for Edgewood Avenue to trade up to- w’ard these valuations. That Macon Project. “Interurban travel will play an im portant part in the city’s future. The Macon project is such a sensible and feasible thing that it will keep on knocking at the doors of capital un til the line is built. This line will land in the vicinity of Ivy and Gil mer Streets, pouring a large neigh boring population into Atlanta at these points. In large cities shoppers come in to town more on interurban lines than to terminal stations, which accommodate the hotel travel. The east side of Atlanta has a great fu ture in store for it as a retail shop ping district. The merchant who gets a good lease on a store in the vicin ity of Hurt’s buildings will be w r ell paid for his enterprise and foresight “Another thing not yet accomplish ed, yet sure to be done, is the aboli tion of grade crossings at Pryor Street and Central Avenue. It stands to reason that no well-managed city of approximately 200,000 population will much longer permit a grade cros sing on important cross-town streets right in the very heart of the city. Everywhere else the railroads have either voluntarily lowered their tracks or been compelled to do so, and it is reasonable to assume that some day Atlanta will follow the example of other cities. North and south trolley cars will go up Pryor Street, Central Avenue and Washington Street Viaducts, as some day the limit will be reached and every car cannot be routed through on Whitehall and Broad Streets, “It takes no prophetic eye to see the wholesale trade dropping down j on the South Side between the big i freight terminals. As leases expire on the north side, wholesale space* is cut up into shops, and the whole saler must drop down. Here he can VERY FEW VACANCIES IN APARTMENT HOUSES Apartment house owners report very few apartments vacant. For every tenant moving out there arc two who want to move in; The apartlnent house idea in At lanta has been of the past decade. As early as 1900 !t was Impossible to find half a dozen or more families living in the same establishment, but to-day the apartment is considered a necessity. There are nearly 100 of the larger apartments and countless small ones. get the area he requires at reason able prices. Many strong concerns are fortifying themselves against the future by establishing In good build ings on 10 and 20 year leases. Streets like Central Avenue, Pryor, White hall, Forsyth, Madison Avenue, Trin ity Avenue and Garnett Street afford the location for such concerns. You can see the pioneers there now; many others will follow.” PRICES ON SOUTH SIDE ARE STEADILY RISING “Hope eternal” sprung up in the breasts of South Side property own ers Thursday, when an enthusiastic meeting was held in the Chamber of Commerce rooms in the Empire Building to discuss Whitehall re grading. South Side property prices have long been considered too low, and the enthusiasm of one happy brother caused him to rise and ex claim, “Double mine!” HOKE STREET PROPERTY TO BE SOLD FOR HEIR Walter M. Gilmer, guardian of Roy Gilmer, has given public notice that he will sell for reinvestment the first Monday in May a one-fifth interest in a tract of land lying on Hoke Street, 50 by 200 feet. 85 feet west of Hemp hill Avenue, the same being the inter est of the said Roy Gilmer, a minor, in the estate of hii5 mother, Mrs. Lucy Gilmer, deceased. Lot at Corner of Peachtree and Cain Streets Is Sought by Realty Men. Peachtree Road Proposition Brew ing Among Prominent LandOwners. When the State Legislature con venes the fourth Wednesday In June, It is sure to be faced again with thw problem of a proper disposition of the Governor’s Mansion at the southwest orner of Peachtree and Cain Streets. Already there is a movement on foot to offer a site on Peachtree Road, and it is unnecessary to say that many other locations will be placed at the disposal of the Legislature. Past offers make this a foregone con tusion. At the summer session in 1911 a committee listened to a **core or more of offers. Suggestions were made that the mansion be put on Capitol Square, on Washington Street, !n Ansley Park, on East Hun ter Street, on Peachtree Street, on Peachtree Road, in Druid Hill*, on the South Decatur car line near the Soldiers’ Home, and on Ponce DeLeon Avenue near the Georgian Terrace. After deliberations in which gal lons of “midnight oil” were consumed, the committee threw down the job and has not taken it up since. There were several things In the way. In the first place, the committee could not decide whether the Governor's Mansion site should be sold or leased; then there were so many real estate agents willing to take over the poor old parcel and provide a new home that the lawmakers could not decide definitely and unanimously where the Governor’s home should be. An inno cent little advertisement of the prop erty had opened the proverbial “Pan dora's box of trouble,* and the result of the deliberations was that the mat ter was dropped—until it should be revived again. Revival of Question Due. This revival is coming from a num ber of interesting sources, principal among which is the Peachtree Road source, and the outcome will be watched with great Interest. The Peachtree Road sortie is sure to be met with a Druid Hills response; and Ansley Park sallies will call for ech oes from the South Side and sub urban districts that man knows not of. Droid Hills sot a little better than a dogfall in the last contest The committee went on record as favoring a mansion site in Druid Hills, wdth two dissenting voices. Now’, the committee considers the matter a part of unfinished business, and as for the committee itself, why, it is long since dissolved. A new committees will have to b© chosen and the whole .ground gone over again, the difference being that there will be a great many more proposals than before, and consequently much more worry to the fatherly legisla tors. Real estate men declare it has been a long time between bids. Think of waiting two full years before at tempting to gobble up that rich real ty morsel on classic Peachtree—the Governor's Mansion! How’ the real estate fraternity passed over 1912 without sending “memorials” to the Legislature is one of the seven won ders. Legislators don’t know how to explain It, but they know, and know’ full well, that the rest was a much- needed one, when ordinary State business had to be reckoned with as usual. What Time Has Done. Adding to their mental pabulum through a season of deep reflection, however, the land brokers aro pre pared for a fresh onslaught which promises to net results. They are fairly chuckling in their sleeves over the propositions which have sprung up in the meantime. The old offers to take over the State property are rather threadbare, and they won’t stand patching. A completely new- set of “resolutions” will be laid be fore the committee. Property has been creeping up in the price scale these two years. The State will ex pect more for the mansion, bur the realty experts also have a card. If any swapping is done, the Legisla ture's committee of property will have to figure on advanced prices on the other side. Would anybody be foolish enough to offer the Marlborough property, northwest corner of Peachtree and Pine, at $600 a foot w’hen It will bring $1,200? Hardly! Can the State expect to get for $16,000 the 'beautiful 205-foot cor ner lot in Druid Hills with 491 feet on a curve? Not at the prevailing rate! Could a lot at the northern junction of the Peach trees, fronting 200 feet on each street, be bought to-day for $40,000. and could the northeast or the southwest corner of Peachtree and Sixth Streets be acquired for the paltry sum of $35,000? Hardly again! Members on Old Committee. The legislative Committee on Property in 1911 was composed of Joseph A. Davis, chairman; Henry A. Matthews, Hooper Alexander. J. R. McCollum. H. .f. Fullbright. Carl Vinson and Joe Hill Hall—seven leg islators true, capable of deciding “this momentous question with never a tie vote. Mr. Alexander was appointed a committee of one to set forth why the property should not be sold, but leased, and Mr. Hall was appointed a committee of one to recite why the Continued on Page 2, Column 3. There are several Atlantans whose names will go down In the history of the city as home-makers for a con siderable percentage of the local pop ulation, and whose works wdll stand as long as time. Atlanta has long since gained the distinction of being a city of homes, and, consequently, when announcement is made that a new and extensive residence section is to be opened up for home-seekers or that such a section is nearing completion cordial interest centers around it. The Peters family, the Ansleys and the Adairs will always be remem bered in local history as idealists of the highest type in land culture and home-Buildlng. E. Rivers, head of the E. Rivers Realty Company, cornea In this class. Like the other pa- trtoHc A'tlahthns, hO Ms put aside a small measure of gratification In the present to enjoy a large measure .of it in the future. Mr. Rivers’ Life Work. Three years ago. when Mr. Rivers and his associates, including some of the best known business men of At lanta, bought the Wesley (’oilier tract on the western side of Peachtree Road, just beyond Peachtree Creek and the city limits, Mr. Rivers made this remark: “I expect to make the development of Peachtree Heights Park my life work. If the park is completed and the lots sold to home builders within ten years I shall have achieved part of my ambition.” Mr. Rivers did not figure on turn ing over his money in six months or a year. He foresaw that the location and contour of this property. Just within the Buckhead section, made it a future high-class residence prop erty of Atlanta. He and his asso dates bought it, and instead of sim ply cutting it up into lots and offer ing it to the public for quick sale in the rough state, he went to work and spent money on it. The foremost landscape artists and topographical engineers of the United States were employed to shape it up. Thousands upon thousands of dollars were spent In building roads, laying water mains and sewers, in deforestation and other Improvements to get it ready for the building of homes; * and, although much has been accomplished and the beauty of the tract is apparent to the visitor, there still remains much to be done. Purchasers of lots there can get a guarantee that everything planned will be done,, or they can “pour it back In the jug.” This, in brief, is an example of Mr. Rivers* development methods He has done more than this. He has spent several thousand dollars in creating and beautifying an entrance to this residence park the attractive building on 1'euchtree Road known as “The Lodge.” First Impressions. “It is my idea,” said Mr. Rivers, “that when a man enters Peachtree Heights Park at the Lodge, he shall feel that he is upon his own ground, although his home lot may be half a mile distant somewhere within the park. The impression is the same as one gets on entering the SPrinceton University campus through Blair Arch. “We have spared no pains or ex pense on this tract and have de veloped it with a view of providing an attractive home site even for the man who might desire to put as much as $100,000 into a home. And yet, for one-tenth of that sum a man may provide himself with a delight fill and attractive home in this sec tion.” Mr. Rivers’ idea in developing Peachtree Heights Park grew out of a similar development just on the other side of Peachtree Road, known as Peachtree Heights, which he took up prior to the purchase of the Col lier tract. Many Homes Built. Peachtree Heights is also a dis tinctive part of the Buckhead sec tion, where future residential Atlanta is going. Thirty or forty handsome homes W’ere built within this terri tory in 1912. Twice as many more will probably be erected in the next 12 months. The entire territory through Buck head and beyond is supplied with city w'ater; while in these two par ticular tracts developed by Mr. Riv ers ample and complete systems of sewerage have been laid down. Rapid transit, 20 t»> 25 minutes to Atlanta, electric lights, telephones and other conveniences have brought these sec tions very close .to town. V'