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Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?
With No Protection, Downtown Is
"The Lower Downtown Historic Overlay District
proposed by the Athens-Clarke County Planning
Department staff is the most intrusive land use
measure ever proposed in the county.”
—Athens Holiday Inn franchisee Benson’s. Inc.,
responding to a proposal to designate "Lower
Downtown" Athens as a historic district. October
1999.
far as anyone on the outside could tell it
was over quickly and quietly. Two historic
buildings, comprising nearly an entire downtown
block, changed hands twice in a matter of days.
In earty February, Athens-based Loef Blumberg
Realty sold the Michael Brothers and Morris build
ings—occupying the block bounded by East
Broad, North Jackson, East Clayton and Thomas
streets—to George Matta. Matta, in turn, sold the
Michael Brothers Building to Athenians Scott and
Annette Nelson and the Morris Building to local
businessman Irvin Alhadeff.
Matta, the former owner of Compadres restau
rant, told the Athens Daily News that he bought
the buildings to protect their tenants from being
driven out Combined, the two buildings house
seven local businesses: Whiskey Bar, Frontier gift
shop, Broad Street Bar and Grill Loef Gallery,
Lotus Eaters clothing store. Toppers International
Showbar and Compadres. A woman from North
Carolina, Matta said, wanted to move in and open
a shopping maU.
• The Nelsons plan to renovate their building,
incorporating offices and possibly residential
units into the top floors, the ADN reported.
Alhadeff, who owns Masada Leather & Outdoor on
East Clayton St., did not return Flagpoles call for
comment on his plans for the Morris Building.
If the Nelsons and Alhadeff maintain the his
toric character of their new properties, it won't be
because they have to. Though much of downtown
is on the National Register of Historic Places, a
purely honorary designation, Athens has no local
designation to regulate what can and cannot be
built there. The sale of the Michael Brothers and
Morris buildings could have meant their demoli
tion without so much as a public hearing. And
with minimal design standards in place, there is
no way to guarantee the compatibility of new
construction with the existing fabric of down
town.
"The Michael Brothers Building evidently is
going to be maintained and preserved and actu
ally improved," says Bertis Downs. "But would
anything stop someone from coming in and
building the ugliest thing in the world? No. It's
hanging by a thread, the whole area."
Downs is preservation issues committee chair
of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation, a non
profit, member-supported private organization
that promotes preservation and historically sensi
tive development.
"It would seem to me like downtown is the
obvious next historic district in this town. It is
the nerve center of our community," Downs says.
"And it's also the unique character of downtown,
both architecturally, culturally: the human con
nection of everybody on a day-to-day basis whe-e
people run into each other between the University
and town. It's just a prototypical. Southern col
lege town, in the best way."
Downs and others tout both t). _ aesthetic and
the economic value of a downtown historic district
"There's hundreds of examples that when [a
subdivision] has good covenants, prices in the
neighborhood are maintained and stabilized. It's
the same way in a downtown district," says devel
oper Smith Wilson. "Right now. I own 13 build
ings downtown, and I'd like to have some of my
investment preserved. One way of doing it is
having a downtown historic district."
Wilson is considered a leading private sector
advocate for preservation. Among his current pro
jects is The Bottleworks, a mixed-use development
on Prince Avenue. Converted from the former
Coca-Cola bottling plant. The Bottleworks will
house office space, businesses and residential
units. If anyone needs proof that historically-
minded development is fiscally viable, Wilson has
it: several Bottleworks condominiums have already
sold for over S200,000 a pop.
On the government side. ACC Commissioner
John Barrow made a formal request last month
that the Commission revisit the idea of a down
town historic district.
"We want to protect people's investments and
the historic flavor and character of downtown,"
Barrow says, "and don't want development on a
large scale that would undermine that."
Ironically, the property owners and developers
who could benefit from historic designation tend
to be its most vocal opponents. And few are more
vocal than Athens Holiday Inn franchisee
Benson's, Inc.
Hands Off
Earty last year, Athens Downtown Development
Authority Executive Director Art Jackson told
Flagpole that a national bookstore chain had
recently expressed interest in occupying an entire
block of downtown.
"We said, 'No way, that won't work,'" Jackson
said. "People won't tolerate that."
But there would be little, if anything, anyone
could do about it Case in point: Benson's. Inc. is
in the process of buying up half a block—bor
dering Thomas Street from East Clayton to
Washington streets—to build a new hotel Not
only does this mean the destruction of buildings
lining East Clayton (and the displacement of local
businesses that occupy them), it will also result in
new construction th*t will, for better or worse,
dramatically alter the complexion of downtown.
Yet, as things stand, the community will have no
say iriihe hotel's design.
It won't be for lack of trying. In 1999, ACC
Planning Staff, at the behest of a committee
headed by then-ACC Commissioner Marilyn Farmer,
composed an ordinance that would have
enveloped the Benson's site in a "Lower
Downtown Special Overlay District" The overlay
would have re-zoned eastern downtown from
Jackson Street to the Oconee River, setting guide
lines *or construction within its boundaries to spur
compatibility with select "key buildings" and the
Classic Center.
Benson's issued a response to the proposal,
picking it apart: "The terms 'insensitive design'
and 'incompatible design' are never defined,
although the clear inference of the Proposal is
that 'sensitive' and 'compatible' design is only that
which occurs within the guidelines as imposed by
the ordinance." Chairman Edsel Benson promised
to sue the county should the overlay be enacted.
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□ FLAGPOLE MARCH 7, 2001