Archive for June, 2008
Can You Guess What is Coming to Crabapple?
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Crabapple
Back in January, I posted on this blog a rumor that Fresh Market was going to anchor the shopping center at Crabapple Road and Houze Road where the old Ingles grocery used to be.
Five months have passed and still no progress. The anchor space still stands empty, as do all the ancillary spaces. It had also been rumored that a dinner theater was going to go in, but nothing has solidified.
However, there have been some changes. Every tree that was planted in the parking lot, and there must have been a dozen or two, some as high as thirty feet I estimate, has been cut down. Every median has been torn up. In their place new medians and supposedly new trees are being constructed and planted. The old ones didn’t weren’t aligned properly or didn’t run the right way. Talk about a solution looking for a problem. Either we are over-engineering or over-analyzing or over-regulating, but I could have figured out a way to navigate the parking lot the way it was.
I suspect that the redesign of the parking lot might have to do with the new concrete block building being built on the remaining pad in the corner. Can you guess what that is? Guess again.
That’s right, it’s a Walgreens. (Notice that all the trees are gone?) We need a Walgreens there like a hole in the head. There is already an Eckerd litterally a nine iron away on the next corner and a CVS just down the road at Hardscrabble, a hard cut driver down wind.
There are at least six drug stores that I can think of on Highway 9 and another few on Highway 92. It is some sort of failure of capitalism to allow an analyst in a cube in some far away city to decide that we need yet another drug store. Maybe they are looking at the per capita consumption of Ritalin, Zoloft and Prozac to justify another store. I don’t get it.
Will capitalism give me some variety please; will it give me some local character; will it cease with Generica already? I don’t want to be live like everyone else; Crabapple (and Milton and Alpharetta for that matter) have the opportunity to be different, but not if we keep piling the chains into the strip centers. Unique character is what makes people want to live in an area and what supports property values.
I’m not against an occasional drug store and I even patronize them, but I don’t need one on every corner. Competition is good, but saturation is horrible.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 5 Comments »
Ground Broken on New Birmingham Elementary School in Milton
categories: Schools
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - Nov 10: A Sea of Shapes.
The vast array of shapes to be founds in the framing of the new school would put even the most thorough of Kindergarten schoolmarms to the test.
The next photo is the entrance to the new school; the base pavement layer was just put down. I took a lot more pictures this week. See the whole gallery here: Entire Birmingham Elementary Photo Gallery.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - Oct 28: Put a Roof on It.
Gotta keep the rain out. As the rest of the steel structure goes up they begin to roof the front of the building.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - Oct 1: School Starts to Go Vertical
It has been a few weeks since I’ve taken any pictures and in that time the steel has started rising from the concrete. The floor is all poured and the structural steel is being put in place. Now you can get a sense of the buildings profile.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - August 17: Septic Tank Closed and Walls Starting to Go Up
We saw what the inside of the septic tank looked like when it was under construction. This is what the finished product looks like.
The footings and walls are now in progress. This is what I think is near the school entrance. The plumbing has been laid (black pipes sticking up) and the remainder of the footings are being poured. I saw struck by how large the footprint of the school is. Look at the entire photo gallery to get a sense of the scope of the building.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - August 1: Giant Septic Tank Dug, Formed and Poured
CLICK HERE to see full gallery of all pictures of Birmingham School Construction.
Have you ever wondered what a septic system looked like that was designed to handle the physical by-product of 850 Kindergarten through Fifth Graders? Well, feast your eyes. Here are pictures of the main tank as it is formed, reinforced with rebar and poured with concrete. It consists of two chambers, each about 30 feet long about 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep.
I’m not sure the total daily waste that the system is designed to handle, but everything is going to come out that little blue pipe on the end of the tank and flow to the drain field.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - July 19: Fulton County Schools Sign goes up and Big Time dirt work continues
CLICK HERE to see full gallery of all pictures of Birmingham School Construction.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - July 9: Trees Gone on North Side
Trees on the north side of the property became mulch in the matter of about two days. This is where the septic field is going to be.
This is a picture of the southwest corner of the property where trees remain. This area is the lowest on the property; I’m not sure what is going to become of it but it looks like they have some sort of drive cut through it. I hope they keep the trees here, as it makes the area look much nicer.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - June 24: Materials Arriving
No doubt construction has commenced now. The big galvanized drain pipes have arrived and earth moving is happening every day. I walked the entire site the other day and it is much more elevated than it appears from the street, a nice gentle rise that many motocross riders are apparently going to miss from the telltale tracks left behind. The place where the school will go will have a nice view to the west.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - June 15: Porta-potty onsite
I thought it might be fun to follow the progress of the new school with photographs. My attempt will be to take a picture each week to document the construction.It has been two weeks since initial sign of ground breaking. Since then they have managed to spread the pile of gravel at the entrance, deliver the porta-potty and add some earth moving equipment. The new equipment hasn’t moved in a number of days, though.
Birmingham Elementary School Progress - June 1: Ground Broken
Finally, dirt has been moved. Not a lot of dirt, but there is sign now that construction of the new elementary school on Birmingham Highway and Wood Road is proceeding. Apparently the delay - construction had been slated to start last January - was in obtaining the land disturbance permit from the City of Milton.
The school is still scheduled to open in the Fall, 2009. Redistricting meetings will not start until late Fall or early Winter this year.
One design characteristic that The City of Milton was able to impose was the inclusion of a four-rail horse fence, which is so commonly seen in Milton, around the school property to make it blend in better with the surrounding properties.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Download my vCard for your Outlook Contacts
