DreamHack Atlanta 2024, from October 4-6

In this episode of UrbanEBB, Rico talks with Lyndsay Postell from DreamHack Atlanta to discuss the excitement surrounding this year’s event. Lyndsay reveals new experiences, including a tabletop gaming tavern and robotics demonstrations, while sharing how DreamHack continues to evolve with its diverse community of gamers, cosplayers, and tech enthusiasts. Whether you’re into competitive esports, casual LAN parties, or discovering the latest indie games, DreamHack has something for everyone!

Join us as Lyndsay dives into how DreamHack Atlanta is growing its family-friendly offerings while staying true to its hardcore gaming roots. From cosplay competitions to charity events and creator hubs, this year’s event promises to be an unforgettable weekend for gaming fans of all ages. Don’t miss this insider look at one of the biggest gaming festivals in North America!

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – DreamHack Atlanta
00:01:24 – Excitement for Upcoming Events and Mobile Esports
00:02:52 – Innovative Products and Exciting Partnerships
00:04:43 – Enhancing E-Sports and Gaming Community Experiences
00:08:43 – Millennials Bringing Kids and Family to Gaming Events
00:10:06 – A Family and Community Affair
00:13:03 – Indie Playground at Dreamhack
00:15:30 – Dreamhack Dallas Boosts Indie Developers
00:18:03 – Vibrant Atlanta Cosplay Community Shines at DreamHack
00:22:10 – Call of Duty Championship Weekend
00:24:36 – Passionate Creator Hub and Exciting Guests
00:26:35 – Charity Initiatives and Live Streaming
00:29:23 – Celebrating Atlanta’s Tech Community and STEM Initiatives

Podcast Transcript

Transcript:

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb here in Peachtree Corners, the city that lives and breathes smart city stuff just north of Atlanta. And we have a great guest today from DreamHack Atlanta, Lyndsay Postell. Hey, Lyndsay. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:18 – Lyndsay Postell

Hey, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to talk about DreamHack and get to hang out with you for a bit.

00:00:24 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, me too. I’ve been going to DreamHack for the last three years. Two of my kids are actually following me there this year.

00:00:32 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh, that’s so fun.

00:00:33          Rico Figliolini

Yeah, they’re going to be doing some social media, some stuff like that. One of them wants to be a creator, so she’s checking it out also.

00:00:40 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh, I’m so excited.

00:00:40 – Rico Figliolini

She’s excited. She actually just bought all her gaming stuff computer set up everything.

00:00:49 – Lyndsay Postell

Did you get like the whole pc rig, the cool headphones and everything?

00:00:52 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, everything. The chair, I mean everything. And everything matches because she’s a girl. So everything has to match.

00:01:01 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh, you gotta have, all of my stuff is white like I love everything to look like really white and clean. So I get that.

00:01:06 – Rico Figliolini

There you go. And that’s exactly what she did. Everything’s white. Even the CPU, looking inside the CPU, it’s all white in there. So it costs a bit more but, you know.

00:01:16 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, it’s worth it. It’s worth it.

00:01:20 – Rico Figliolini

Apparently. So she’ll be coming, too. So we’re all excited. We can’t wait to get there next weekend the 4th through the 6th.

00:01:23 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah October 4th through the 6th

00:01:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, yeah. So it’s going to be cool and I can’t wait for the Call of Duty mobile championship either. Million dollar prize.

00:01:39 – Lyndsay Postell

I know it’s amazing.

00:01:41 – Rico Figliolini

I know, it’s incredible.

00:01:42 – Lyndsay Postell

And, I mean, I think that I applaud the people who compete in COD Mobile or any mobile esports incredibly because I feel like I fat thumb things so incredibly. Like, I’m terrible at mobile anything. So, yeah, you’ll see me playing Candy Crush. They can handle COD Mobile. I’ll be on Candy Crush.

00:02:05 – Rico Figliolini

You know what’s funny? My daughter has me. We’re in a group, family group, playing Fortnite. But then I’m off playing Call of Duty on my mobile device sometimes. I get to Legendary every season, but I can’t get enough points that make sense. These guys are just ripping it over there.

00:02:19 – Lyndsay Postell

I know. It’s insane. It’s insane. Some of the skills and how quick people are on those little screens, I don’t get it. I’ll stay to event planning and organization, but I absolutely love seeing it happen because it’s like magic.

00:02:35 – Rico Figliolini

It’s fantastic. So tell me, so this year is going to be big, right? Every year is a little bigger than the last, I think. What big changes are coming this year to ‘24, to DreamHack?

00:02:46 – Lyndsay Postell

That is a super great question. So like the product team and the partner, I mean, everybody’s been working super, super hard to continue innovating and making new products. One of the things I’m really excited about is the new tabletop tavern. So we are using one of the auditoriums and turning it into this like D&D tavern that people can go and enjoy live experiences and one shots and really dive into that tabletop experience. And I mean, that’s just one of the things like we’re partnering as well with Georgia First Robotics to work with the community, but also bring robotics to the show.

00:03:14 – Rico Figliolini

That’s a student-driven thing, isn’t it?

00:03:16 – Yes. So it’s a 5013C or C3. I always get that wrong. And it’s just a phenomenal org. And I think they work with K through 12 all the way into the college space. And they have a little Lego League that’s so sweet for like the younger kids but it’s really, really cool, so excited about that. And small spoiler, we might have some of the bots running around during registration in the registration area for people but you didn’t hear that from me.

00:04:00 – Rico Figliolini

That would be great. I can’t wait to see it. As far as this week, I know Atlanta, Georgia is becoming a bigger gaming environment, space, I think. There’s a lot more startups here. So it’s just more so than some people might think. The same way that Texas is big in anime. Who would think Texas would be big in anime?

00:04:24 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah.

00:04:25 – Rico Figliolini

So, and Georgia is the same way, I feel like. who would think Georgia is like big in the space. So the week that DreamHack is happening here next week is Games Week Georgia. Which is sort of an overlay of other things, right? Esports summit, creative summit. How do you all, you know, how does that enhance the experience? How are you all collaborating?

00:04:48 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, yeah. So super excited to be working with Skillshot and Ghost Gaming on the Georgia games. Or the, I always mess it up, Games Week Georgia activations. But I mean one of our big goals and especially I mean, my official title is product manager of communities and associations. So one of the things that we always try to do is really work with the local community, work with the local orgs that are there that are really empowering the community. The fellow gamers, the fellow nerds, the fellow fans. So, really excited for Games Week Georgia. I mean, Skillshot and Ghost are both amazing partners. And by doing this, we’re able to give people a broader experience. DreamHack is of course kind of the the cherry on top and, you know, the masterpiece at the end of the week. But this allows everyone in the community to be able to network and engage and go to different events that might be more specific to their type of gaming or what they’re interested in, in the gaming ecosystem. So this is, I want to say, our second year doing Games Week Georgia. I might be wrong on that, but it’s been just amazing working with them like they are so, so phenomenal and i’m really excited to stop by a lot of the events myself honestly.

00:06:11 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I think it’s going to be great for you know professionals even the casual gamer to be attending some of this stuff because the future is changing right? It’s exploding, trends in this market.

00:06:21 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. Well and that’s also something that’s like really important to us is every single product we build at DreamHack, we want to make sure that we have something for everybody. So whether it’s like you’re just interested in gaming, you’re a professional gamer, you’re in the collegiate sphere, whatever it is, we want to make sure that you can go to DreamHack and still have a weekend full of activities and things to participate in. And I think that we’ve really been, like you mentioned, kind of the ecosystem growing. And I think that’s really accurate. I think that the gaming ecosystem as a whole has been really blowing up, especially COVID was a really interesting time for all of gamers, because a lot of people who weren’t gamers threw themselves into gaming. And now that we are, you know, back out of that bubble, people really want to come together and meet those online friends and, you know, build those communities together. So, well, I’m, I mean, I’m just, I’m really excited to see. There’s always one moment that I catch during every show that I’ve seen. And there’s many more, but there’s always like two friends that run up and hug and it’s their first time seeing each other. And it’s like, you know, these best friends from online getting together and getting to enjoy the weekend. And I’m really excited about that. And, you know, we have community gatherings, which are similar to like community meetups, all for that. And yeah, not to get all hallmark-y, but I really love how the community comes together for DreamHack for sure.

00:07:51 – Rico Figliolini

You know, it’s amazing. I think sort of my generation of parents and stuff look at their kids and they’re like, they’re socked away in their room and stuff. They’re playing on, you know, they’re playing on their games. They’re on Discord. I mean, even my youngest, who’s almost 21, he’s communicating with his friends all online. And then they show up to these conventions. It’s almost like, well, that’s the complete opposite because now they’re socially outbound. And my daughter, who’s the middle child, she’s playing with gamers on the West Coast. So there’s a three-hour time difference. So she’s playing until three in the morning sometimes, whereas she’s midnight, you know? And so it’s crazy.

00:08:36 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. No, I mean, it’s awesome. I also feel like what we’re seeing in kind of the millennial generation having kids is we’re starting to see like a lot of these millennials grew up playing PC games or console games. And so we’re seeing these really cute moments with like their kids growing up. And one of the really cool things, I think it was my second DreamHack ever. This will be my eighth DreamHack. But I was talking to someone and they had their like two-year-old kid with them. And they were I’ve been going to DreamHack for years. I’ve been to the ones in Sweden. I’ve been all over for DreamHack. And now my daughter is here with me and this is so cool. And that was just like sold for me. I was like, okay, this is one of my favorite memories. So yeah.

00:09:20 – Rico Figliolini

And I can, and I can see that because I think it was last year maybe or the year before, I met a couple from Wisconsin, young couple, 12-year-old kid. The father drove from Wisconsin to Atlanta to make sure he carried, he had the CPU for the bring your own computer, right? And so he brought it. He didn’t trust it on the plane. His wife flew with the kid. He drove all the way in and they met up and he was playing Fortnite the rest of the afternoon and the rest of the day, I guess, or weekend.

00:09:52 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh my gosh.

00:09:52 – Rico Figliolini

It’s a family affair.

00:09:53 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, it is a family affair. And it’s also, it’s, you know, it’s a community affair, if you will. You get to meet your friends or watch some of your favorite like competitive gamers compete against each other or you know watch the cosplay competition or if you’re into cosplay you can enjoy all of the perks of the cosplay corner and the meetups and gatherings and yeah that particular story is really cool. And the byoc is our big bring your own computer LAN party that’s like the staple of DreamHack. And it’s on Friday. Seeing everyone wheeling in their you know chairs and these giant totes and PCs and like the commitment of the gamers that come to dreamhack for byoc is incredible. But the atmosphere is unmatched when we’re all set up. It’s incredible.

00:10:52 – Rico Figliolini

Do you, doing it for eight years now, I mean, you saw the growth of it from eight years ago. Do you see the type of person changing that you see there?

00:11:00 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. So, and I apologize, my eighth DreamHack. So, you know, we have about two to three each year.

00:11:09 – Rico Figliolini

So yeah, that’s true.

00:11:10 – Lyndsay Postell

But I think I do. I mean, I think back to my first DreamHack. And I think the biggest difference is that we’re seeing a lot more families coming in. And we’re seeing a younger crowd starting to really come in and it’s been really cool. But we still have that amazing core like hardcore gamers. Our byoc crowd, the competitive crowd. So it’s not that it’s changing in a way. I think it’s more growing and that just kind of speaks to the products that we build and how it’s becoming more inclusive for everybody, which I think is pretty cool.

00:11:48 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I think so too. If you go to, if anyone that goes to the website to find out more information, there’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s just like, there’s something for everybody in that list of speakers, events during the weekend. Yeah. So many things.

00:12:07 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. I mean, we have the DreamHack Theater, which is our panels room, which is just packed full of incredible panels. Our community campground is where the community gatherings happen. And that’s packed full. We have the largest artist alley and indie playground that we’ve ever had in North America. And I think the largest indie playground that DreamHack has ever had and you know there’s going to be like many events happening like the indie mixer and you know it’s going to be, it’s going to be a really good show. I’m really excited for it. I’m ready to get on the plane and be there.

00:12:43 – Rico Figliolini

And you’re coming from Cincinnati. So that’s where the weather is better on the day that we’re recording this because the hurricane Helene is coming in.

00:12:52 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Sending love to all of my friends in Atlanta right now. Cause I know that’s rough.

00:12:58 – Rico Figliolini

Kind of calm right now, but it’s going to be crazy later. So tell us also a little bit more about the indie playground. What does that look like? What does it encompass?

00:13:12 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, so I’m super biased because I am the product manager that gets to oversee the indie playground. But the indie playground, we always try to work with local or just phenomenal indie orgs to help curate the space. So we’re working with orgs like Women in Gaming International, IGDA. We’re working with GGDA, which is the Georgia Game Developers Association, the Indie Cluster. We’re working with Black Voices in Gaming as well. And so what this looks like is this time we will have around 60 different indie developers all exhibiting different games. A lot of them are not out yet. A lot of them are demos. So it’s kind of the first time that people can come and play these games or play test them.

00:14:00 – Rico Figliolini

Oh, okay.

00:14:02 – Lyndsay Postell

We have a little mixer happening on Friday just for the developers and some publishers as well. Because overseeing the indie playground, I think, yes, we want to create something that’s incredible for the attendees, but we also want to create something that’s really, really accessible and valuable for the developers who are taking the time to travel out and be there and exhibit and spend hours and hours on the show floor talking. And so one of the ways we do that currently is we waive all of the booth fees for the indie developers to make it like to lower the barrier for people to be able to exhibit or develop. Because some of these people are, you know, they, some of these developers, it’s just them. And, you know, it’s just their kind of their baby and their project and we want to support them and try to get as many eyes as we can. And so we also have something in our, the DreamHack app if you download that called Quests and we have quests all through the festival. And one of the quests is to run to the indie playground and wish list one of the games that you enjoy or vote in an audience choice award, which we do throughout the weekend. So I could talk about the indie playground for forever. You might have to stop me because it’s like my favorite.

00:15:14 – Rico Figliolini

Well, I could see why too. I mean, there was someone from, your team told us about DreamHack Dallas, where one of the indie game developers a few days later, ended up getting a VC calling them and investing in their company.

00:15:26 – Lyndsay Postell

Yes. So that’s Banjo Toad Studio. They’re absolutely phenomenal. So if you guys stop at DreamHack, make sure to check them out. But yeah, they have a game called 1000 Cuts. The developer is so sweet and so kind, but he emailed us. And this was before we even sent him, you know, information about Atlanta. And he said, hey, I just want to thank you guys. Because of DreamHack, we’re now fully funded. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that’s incredible. And, you know, it really, it validates the work that we’re doing for sure. But I was just so happy for that developer. And I’m really excited for the developers that are going to be in Atlanta as well.

00:15:59 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. And he’ll be there too. You know, it just gives a whole different value to it. It’s not just a gaming place. You know, so it’s completely different now. You know, the other thing going on, obviously, that we can’t ignore, besides VR that has been around for a while, right? But the AI-driven games, driven games also like you know like real engine and other software. Do you see, what do you see as a future for DreamHack festivals like or is there anything happening now in this festival about with VR and AI driven stuff?

00:16:42 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, no, that’s a really good question. So for, we do have a huge like VR free play area where people can come in and do all these VR games. And it’s always, it’s really really fun to do but also to watch because, I mean, I’m sure you’ve all seen the clips online of people like you know going crazy with VR sets on and you have no idea what’s happening but it’s entertaining on both sides right? So it’s just a really, really cool activation. I mean as far as AI, that’s mainly the developers you know like if they use AI programs to build their games or help code out games. But as far as DreamHack currently that is all us, that is still us and Excel sheets and a lot of Slack messages. And yeah.

00:17:31 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Well, let’s move away from the gaming for a little bit because cosplay is a big thing also. And I think there’s a lot more programming going on. And you’re overseeing it. So tell us a little bit about that, that community and how that’s going to be, what that’s going to look like here in the next week or so.

00:17:49 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, the first thing to state about the Atlanta cosplay community is they are so passionate. It is such an incredible, vibrant community. And this is the first time where cosplay has been on my plate that I’ve been overseeing it for Atlanta so I’m really excited to get to work with them. We’re gonna have a phenomenal cosplay competition on Saturday on our main stage. I believe that starts at 4 p.m and then we also are going to have a community gathering with Beltline cosplay we have photo cubes attached to the cosplay corner for photo shoots for cosplayers and all attendees whoever would like to come up and take like really cool themed photos. The cosplay corner itself has a lounge inside of it just for cosplayers to be able to sneak away. I always say take the wig off kick the heels off for a second and be able to rest and relax so really excited to get to work with the Atlanta community firsthand for the first time and yeah. Dallas was the first time that the new cosplay team took over cosplay and it was so phenomenal so I’m really excited to be able to bring that and you know multiply that by the passion of the community.

00:18:58 – Rico Figliolini

I’m really excited to see it.

00:19:01 – Lyndsay Postell

We also have a drag show called the Drag and Drop Drag Show that’s happening on Friday and then all of the drag artists that we have do cosplays of various game characters. So it’s really fun like everything we do. Even though you would think like oh, why is drag, how does that relate to gaming like, oh easy they’re, you know characters. So it’ll be really fun. There’s going to be a lot of entertaining stuff. Main stage is going to be packed.

00:19:30 – Rico Figliolini

Wow. It’s going to be exciting. I mean there’s such a massive crowd that’s going to be attending. I’m sure you know we have Atlanta, we have local flavor, we have people coming in from local communities. How do you handle international gamers that may be coming into Atlanta? How does that work?

00:19:48 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, I mean, we do have people from all over the States, all like tons of different countries that fly into a DreamHack. And it’s not even just for our big competitions like the COD Mobile stuff. It’s really for all of the content, for the BYOC, for the experience. So, I mean, one of the biggest things that we do is we just really try to focus on accessibility as a whole, because obviously, we have every type of walk of life coming in. And so we want to make sure that anyone can sit down and understand what’s happening on main stage or enjoy the COD Mobile Tournament or whatever is happening. So the best way to kind of support international gamers is just making sure that everything we do is thought of from every single angle and every single walk of life. And so it’s accessible for everybody. But yeah, it is really cool when I’m walking around and I’m hearing all these different dialects and languages and it’s like, wow, this is really incredible. It’s really fun.

00:20:49 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. I mean, it’s between that and everything else going on.

00:20:53 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah.

00:20:54 – Rico Figliolini

Esports is another big thing, right? Competition within that. We hadn’t really spoken about that yet. And I know that’s been there, too, especially with the gaming side of it and the betting side of it also if you will. Well the franchises of it. So tell us, you know, a little bit about that type of draw and what’s coming here as far as Esports goes.

00:21:15 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, so just off the top of my head, I know we have like 20 Esports competitions that’ll be happening. Starting with the big one million dollar COD Mobile Tournament, all the way down to, we will have a ton of tournaments happening in our free play area that any attendee can walk up, sign up for and play. So there’s going to be, I mean, off the top of my head, kind of any game title you can think of. I think there’s going to be a tournament that a lot of people can engage in. And so it’ll be really exciting. If you want to come and compete or try, you know, playing something in Freeplay Rico, you should, because it’d be really fun.

00:21:51 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I think so. I think I’ll do that. Yeah. As far as COD, the Call of Duty part, is that championship through the whole weekend, or is that, how is that going to actually work?

00:22:04 – Lyndsay Postell

So super transparently, I don’t have that schedule off the top of my head. I know it is on our website if there’s more info there, but I am 99% sure that is through the entire weekend because I mean, the hype of that has been building up around that is, you know, going to last a week.

00:22:24 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, yeah, it’s a big thing. A million dollars. No one’s going to like, not look at that. As far as the, you know, we’ve spoken about the other stuff, the artist alley, I’m sure there’s, that’s going to be huge as well. I liked it last year, but there’s the conference part or the vendor part as well, right?

00:22:48 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. Yeah. So like I mentioned, I mean, we’re going to have the largest Artist Alley and Indie Expo we’ve ever had. But the expo itself is also the largest expo that we have had as well. I mean, we have more stores, more businesses, more merch that’s coming in. One thing that’s really notable is we are going to have, we have something called the Georgia Pavilion, which is a section inside of the expo with local Georgia businesses that we bring in and, you know, make sure that we want to also highlight the Georgia ecosystem. Again, working with the community. So they will be in the expo. They’ll have a nice section there so yeah the expo will be really cool. That’s also where the Georgia First Robotics stuff will be throughout the weekend if you want to come check them out and learn more about them as well. Yeah, the expo is going to be really cool this year.

00:23:38 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. Have we touched upon what, you know, I mean there’s so much going on there.

00:23:44 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing that I do want to mention that I don’t think I’ve talked about yet is the creators that we have coming to the show. So we have over 500 approved creators that are going to be there from all different types of streaming platforms. And we have something called the Creator Hub where you can literally just walk by and it’s like lined with PCs of your favorite streamers and creators just streaming live there. So like your daughter will be super excited to see that.

00:24:16 – Rico Figliolini

I think so.

00:24:17 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah. But it’s really phenomenal. And the Creator Hub team are, again, I know I keep saying it’s so cool and everyone’s so passionate, but it’s, it’s true. Like they are very passionate about taking care of the creators. So there will be meet and greets as well at the creator hub. You know, we’re going to have on Main Stage, Dimension 20 and like Brennan Lee Mulligan coming back again. And there will be a meet and greet with him at the creator hub. You know, some of the big names that we’re going to have there are like Dr. Lupo, you know, so there’s incredible names. And I love the Creator Hub.

00:24:54 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I forget who it was. I think it was last year. Maybe it was the year before they were in a cube in the middle. So what was that? That was like he was there.

00:25:00 – Lyndsay Postell

Oh, yeah. So that was Ludwig.

00:25:05 – Rico Figliolini

Ludwig. That was 72 hours he was in there?

00:25:07 – Lyndsay Postell

Yes, he was in there for 72 hours and I think he made like two times his charity goal. But that was that was so fun. And I mean I have to give you an insider peek it was even funnier after the festival closed and it was just like the staff cleaning up and getting everything ready for the next day and he was still just kind of in the box and we were like, Hi Ludwig, sorry we can’t help you, hope you’re okay. You know like just walking around this empty convention center, I mean BYOC was going on like you know across the convention hall but it was really just him alone in this box at night. And I felt a little bad, but it was phenomenal. It was for charity.

00:25:52 – Rico Figliolini

People loved it.

00:25:54 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah, it was super, super fun. I mean, last year we also had T-Pain came by and he streamed at the Creator Hub. And I mean, this year with Dr. Lupo and Brennan Lee Mulligan and Anjali and like a bunch of different people coming in. I’m really excited. We also, the one other thing I don’t think I’ve touched on is the charity work that we do. So that’s something that I help oversee as well. And we’re going to have six incredible charities also stationed in the expo. And we have a week-long stream-a-thon that’s hosted by a creator called BB Jess. She’s also our main stage host for Atlanta. And that week-long stream-a-thon with a bunch of different creators leads all the way up to Sunday on the main stage where we close out the stream-a-thon. And all of that money goes directly to those six incredible charities. So that’s always really, really fun. And the charities love it. They get to come up on stage and do fun little games and skits with BB Jess. And so I’m really excited about that. And that’s part of our Dream Big initiative, which oversees, that’s kind of what we call our charity leg. So yeah.

00:27:09 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool to see that you all are giving back to the community like that. Are you guys streaming as well online like Twitch or any of the other platforms? So if someone can’t come can they watch it?

00:27:20 – Lyndsay Postell

Yeah so some of our content will be streamed. Some of our content can’t be streamed, you know, just because of music or whatever it is. But if you, a lot of our channels are like DreamHack on Twitch, or, you know, DreamHack NA, I would also definitely check us out on our Twitter or our Instagrams, which is DreamHack North America or the umbrella kind of DreamHack account, because we’ll be posting about that as well. So yeah, I think that, for example, I believe the Cosplay competition will be streamed, which will be really exciting. And I think that’s going to be on just the main DreamHack channel. But don’t quote me on that because it might be, we have a couple of side channels. So if you look up DreamHack, you’ll find it on Twitch.

00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini

Right. Right. So DreamHack, they can either Google DreamHack Atlanta or come to DreamHack.com/Atlanta, I guess. Cool. I think, you know, I think we’ve covered everything. There’s anything you think, Lyndsay, that we should be adding to this? Let me know.

00:28:28 – Lyndsay Postell

No. I mean, I just want to like, I want to thank Atlanta for having us back again. This is, you know, we’re celebrating, I think, our sixth year back in Atlanta. And it’s one of the, DreamHack is one of the longest running North American festivals at this point. And it’s just really such an honor to be back in Atlanta. It’s one of my personal favorite cities. I mean, the community is just full of legends and vibrancy and community. So it’s always just an honor to get to work with like the school districts and you know help out the collegiate students and help out all the students. And Atlanta is just amazing so just a huge thank you, while I’m on the podcast, to Atlanta in general for having us back because it’s phenomenal.

00:29:16 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. And being that I’m based in Gwinnett county out of Peachtree Corners we do a lot of stuff with autonomous vehicles. I mean, we’re out there doing things with technology that other cities are not. So we have a STEM school here in Peachtree Corners, STEM high school. They may probably be participating with the robotics part as well. So there’s a lot going on. And I think that there’s a lot of people that are going to want to drive, come out there and be there for the weekend. Yeah. I’m excited myself, but Lyndsay, I appreciate you coming out and talking to me.

00:29:53 – Lyndsay Postell

Thank you for having me. Yeah. I hope to see you and I hope to see your daughter streaming at the creator hub or hanging out at the creator hub if possible. That’ll be really cool.

00:30:02 – Rico Figliolini

Great. Thank you. Again, say hi to Nick and everyone else. Appreciate you being here and everyone that’s watching and listening to this, if you have any questions put them in the comments. I’ll make sure we will get those answered. And do share this with other people and check the links in the show notes in case you can’t find anything but I’ll have a few links in there as well. But thank you, Lyndsay. Appreciate you being with me. Stay safe out there, okay?

00:30:29 – Lyndsay Postell

It’s been a pleasure. Yeah, you too. Stay safe with the hurricane coming in and we’ll see you at DreamHack.

00:30:33 – Rico Figliolini

We made it through with the power, so we’re all good so far.

00:30:37 – Lyndsay Postell

That’s all that matters.

00:30:39 – Rico Figliolini

Thank you. Bye, Lyndsay.

Exploring Land Use with Shaun Adams

Land use changes, business growth, and community engagement shape Peachtree Corners’ future. From revitalizing office spaces to innovative mixed-use developments, the city is working to attract investments and meet the needs of its residents.

Peachtree Corners Life’s host Rico Figliolini is joined by Shaun Adams, Community Development Director, to discuss how the city adapts to new trends, assesses vacancy rates, and gathers public input to guide its growth. Learn about the city’s plans, including focusing on office renovations and diverse housing options, and how the community can get involved in the upcoming public meeting on October 3rd.

Resources:
Peachtree Corners Website: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/
Community Development: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/190/Community-Development
October 3rd Community Engagement Meeting: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=210

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Peachtree Corners Land Use Moratorium
00:01:58 – Revitalizing the Central Business District
00:04:53 – Public Engagement Meeting 
00:07:06 – Insights from Asset Inventory and Changing Business Trends
00:11:11 – Improving Office Amenities and Competitiveness in Tech Park
00:14:03 – Reinvestment in Aging Office Buildings
00:16:15 – Evolving Uses in Office and Mixed-Use Developments
00:19:51 – Attracting Diverse Businesses
00:24:00 – Exploring Mixed-Use and Diverse Housing Options
00:27:39 – Mixed-Use Development
00:29:42 – Efficient Residential Density Options
00:33:17 – Trail Connection Around Technology Park Lake
00:40:41 – Evolving City Management through Conferences and Collaboration
00:43:00 – Accessing City Development Information

Podcast Transcript

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County, Georgia. I’m here with our Community Development Director, Shaun Adams. Hey, Shaun. Thanks for joining us. Before we get started, and we’re going to be discussing the land use moratorium that’s been in effect for almost six months. But before that, I just want to say thank you to EV Remodeling Inc. for being a sponsor, not only of our magazines and our journalism, but these podcasts as well. So you should visit them. They’re a design build firm here in Peachtree Corners. Eli will take care of you. He’s a great guy. The company is called EV Remodeling, and you should go to evremodelinginc.com and visit them. Some great pictures of what he’s done over the past few months. You can browse right through there and then reach out to him. So let’s get right into it. The moratorium is just more than halfway through. It’s going to end November 3rd. And this is a moratorium on residential new application rezonings in a specific area in the central business district. So at some point, there were so many things coming in and so many applications coming in, so many people taking somewhat advantage of wanting to do what they want to do, that the city decided to stop and put a moratorium on new applications to say, well, I think we need to look at this, change a few things maybe, have some public hearings, focus groups, and come back and add to that land use plan, which is, I think, a great thing you all have done. That’s going to end November 3rd, and there’s a public hearing that’s going to be coming up for public comment, I think, Thursday, October 3rd, between 6 and 8 p.m. at City Hall. So we’ll get into that. But I want Shaun, Shaun, if you wouldn’t mind explaining a little bit about why the moratorium briefly was put in place and where you all you know where the city’s at what the timeline has been actually moving forward on that.

00:02:13 – Shaun Adams

Sure thing. So as you indicated you know the central business district just to help people out if you really think from Holcomb Bridge Road up 141 to into the Forum, Town Center. That’s kind of our central business district area. This plan within that is really going to focus on our commercial office portion of it. So Tech Park, Spalding Triangle, Corners Parkway, those areas up and around 141. And so about four months in and what we’ve kind of done so far, one of the biggest things that we’ve done is an asset inventory. We really took a look at our underutilized spaces, vacancy rates, condition assessments, what approvals or redevelopments have occurred so far, but maybe haven’t come out of the ground yet. Looked at our existing proposed trails. You know, we have a trail study. We have some that are already in design and underway or built but we have others proposed but those proposals are largely based off of where we kind of have a path of least resistance through properties or easements but as redevelopments come into play there could be opportunities to maybe realign the trail so it makes more sense based off what’s coming down in the future. And so the first couple months took a lot of time taking a look at that and understanding where we are. We looked at about 100 commercial office buildings. So that was good feedback to use for now and in the future. August, September, we had a couple of focus groups. One of the first ones we did was with a combination of some of our existing board members from Planning Commission and our two authorities, our Downtown Development Authority and our Redevelopment Authority. And what’s great about their feedback is not only do they have a level of industry expertise that runs the gambit from real estate to finance to development to engineering, but they’re all residents who care about seeing how our city moves forward. And so that was a good group. We had about 18 in total there, which for a focus group is a good size. Our consultants kind of ran that meeting. We showed them our map of the asset inventory that we did, kind of used that as a jumping off point. And then we turned around a few weeks later and did the same with some of our brokers and office owners in the area that do a lot of business here to help kind of learn what are they hearing, whether they’re a broker who’s representing a building for sale or they’re representing tenants looking to lease up. And understanding when they’re showing buildings with their tenants, why are they choosing here versus why are they going to Alpharetta or somewhere else? What’s missing? And so we got a lot of good feedback as a part of that focus group. And as you’ve mentioned, public engagement meeting, October 3rd, we’re going to take kind of what we have to date, bring that to them. It will be in council chambers from 6 to 8 p.m. It’s an open house style. And so just kind of help everybody out with that. We will have representatives check them in, kind of give them a one page, if you will, of what we have, what they’re going to see. Using council chambers will be great because we have the TVs down the sides where we’ll have that map up. So no matter where they are in the room, they can see the map. We’ll probably have four to six stations, each one kind of representing a different subsection, if you will, of the central business district. And we’ll have both staff and consultant representation at each of those so that people can come in, they can ask questions about what they’re seeing. We’ll have boards there. And if you remember during the comp plan update process about two years ago, or a little less than two years ago, people were able to put dots in, provide feedback based off a certain question. So one of the benefits of Kimley Horn being our consultant on the small area plan is they were also the consultants on the comp plan. So they have all of that data that the public gave previously. So one of the things we wanted to do is as a refresher as well, is say, here’s what you said 18 to 24 months ago as it relates to the central business district. Here is what the business community has said through our broker owner, Finkers groups or other Finkers groups we did this time. What do you see? What has changed for you in the last 18 to 24 months based off of the feedback provided? Or for those of you who weren’t either in the community at that time or for whatever reason weren’t able to be a part of those sessions, your input can come in as well. So this is building upon the input that we had and helping understand what’s changed. And by having that data there, I think it’s good for the community to see, oh yeah, this is what we thought back then. I agree with that still, or you know what, based off of, you know, XYZ, I think it should be something different and here’s my input. And so we can bring all that together. And then with that, we have a good six week time period before it would be set to go before planning commission in November and council in December. Both of those times, of course, will be public hearings where the community will be able to provide additional input as you would in a typical process.

00:07:19 – Rico Figliolini

Alright. So I have a couple of questions that pop up just because of the discussion here. Was there any surprises you found when your group did the asset inventory of 100 buildings? Because we all have an impression of what we think is going on. But were there any surprises that you found while you were doing that?

00:08:04 – Shaun Adams

You know, there’s quite a few things. That and the vacancy aspect of course. The trick is we’re using CoStar, which may not always be accurate, but kind of seeing the number of buildings that kind of blended together in terms of where we have needs for activation of underutilized space instead of it being just pockets here and there. It’s kind of Corner’s Parkway area, actually. You think about some of the properties over there, there’s a lot of small parking, building. So it’s kind of nice to see kind of how these nodes may have formed throughout that process. And you know another thing is how few properties it would take to connect key pieces of our trail and where some of our hubs are naturally already starting to take shape to say, okay, if a couple of things go in the right direction or we can time these right, then we can connect key stretches of trail through Tech Park that could allow people to run from office to the Forum or wherever to their home.

00:09:06 – Rico Figliolini

Did you find, as you were doing those asset inventories, I don’t know how detailed it was, but types of businesses in there, did you all notice any shift or difference over the, I don’t know even how you would quantify that necessarily without going back a few years, but seeing the turnover maybe would be, is probably the better question over the last five, six years, changes in the type of business in that inventory.

00:09:34 – Shaun Adams

So, I mean, one of the things we are seeing and matter of fact, I mean, it would jump ahead, but we had a recent rezoning, resolving a split zoning, and probably seen a couple of tax amendments for uses like fitness studios come in. But what we are seeing is that flex office is stronger than a lot of traditional office right now. So you have a lot of smaller businesses who need, they don’t need a whole lot of admin office space, you know, a couple of thousands per feet, but they might need a space to house excess inventory or supplies because they’re a service-oriented business that provides their service offsite, mechanical contractors, commercial janitor services, things like that. And an office institutional zoning doesn’t do well with that, but we’re seeing flex office spaces like a lot of our one-story buildings are, where they have that kind of mix of office and warehousing. That’s coming in more, it’s coming in stronger. And so making sure that our code aligns with that is something. And we’ve also heard from the brokers and owners that these are some of the uses that are coming in.

00:10:46 – Rico Figliolini

To go into the brokers and owners, or maybe just the brokers for the time being, or a mix of both, what are you hearing from them that we lack? Let’s start there first, from let’s say Alpharetta or Roswell. Alpharetta is like one of the biggest tech hubs north of Atlanta. Probably 700 companies, if that’s still a good number, there are startups and tech companies. Obviously, that’s a competitive space, right? A competition or rival for us, if you will. So what are we lacking? Have you heard anything specific?

00:11:22 – Shaun Adams

Some of what I’ve heard, I mean, I think you might have seen too in papers of race to quality. You’ve heard that a little bit. And so with a lot of our office stock, it was built in the eighties and those that have kind of redeveloped over time or, you know, reinvested into the office over time, they’re positioned even better, But, you know, having more of that activation and amenitizing of the surrounding. So as we talked earlier about green space, trail connectivity, having some retail or supporting service base in the studio or something like that, where they can work out during lunch and not have to go up to Town Center or somewhere else, but having something kind of central to Tech Park that they can easily get to, or if they want to walk the trail to get to it on lunch, just to clear their head for an hour. Having that is something that, you know, we’re hearing we could use and put us in better competition. But the other part of it is to some of the buildings and seeing them. Part of what we did is reassess the property by looking at the parking, the signs, the landscaping, and the building. Because we can understand based off of how each owner is investing in that building, you know, are they in ramp up mode of trying to pull tenants in or are they in maintenance mode? And being able to understand where that building is in its real estate life cycle or that property is can kind of help us better plan for how can we preserve it and enhance it and stabilize it for the long term.

00:13:03 – Rico Figliolini

So are you seeing, I’m thinking Intuitive Robotics, right? They’re moving along, their construction is being done. I think the parking deck is, I don’t know if it’s complete, but everything’s moving along there, for example. Modern, new looking. Some of the buildings are moving to renovate, right? At the outside of it, new monument signs also I’ve noticed as I drive through Tech Park and some of the other areas but so is that something that you’re seeing too like an outward visible change to the buildings? Because driving to work you know a lot of people were working remote, some people, a lot of people are working remote. A bunch of people are working. It’s hybrid also, and you want to enjoy where you’re working. Some of these old buildings are really old buildings, like you said, 80s and 70s. You feel like you’re going back in time almost in some of these buildings. Are you seeing a reinvestment, a larger reinvestment than you all thought coming in? Because that’s difficult. They’re not rezoning or filing an SUP or something. So they have to file a permit to do certain things. But are you seeing things more than you thought?

00:14:20 – Shaun Adams

We’re seeing some in various places. Again, I think the flex office building stock is doing it more and more. And so those office buildings that are one story, roll up doors in the back, they’re going well, they’re leasing up. Some of the mid-rise office, it’s really honestly a mix. Couple of corporate locations have come in recently, which has been good and has taken up some space in those areas. And that’s helpful. I would say it’s largely stagnant, but part of that right now was what the cost is to bring a building up. They’re having to get, some of what we’ve heard from brokers is, hey, if we’ve got to get a building and spend 100 plus a foot on it to get it to 200 a foot then it’s hard to get the rents to justify that cost and that’s kind of what puts it in maintenance mode. And so part of what we asked was okay, how can we amenitize around you, bring something in to make it easier to invest into that property so that you can justify the rents. Because if you have the amenities, then you can probably get the rents as well. And so that’s part of what we’re hoping to identify out of this plan is where we can, you know, make some of those adjustments. I’m also hoping that rate cuts make it easier for them to want to invest. So I feel like every other week we hear companies are bringing people back to the office. You know, remote work is here to stay. And I think until that pendulum kind of settles down in the middle, it’s just going to be a state of flux.

00:15:57 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Yeah, the rates, I mean, half point drop. Who knows if next year will be another half point drop next quarter or the quarter after. But yeah. And I think the market, I mean, from what I see anyway, from what I’m hearing, right, the market has accepted it already. I think they’ve already worked it in, but who’s an economist? The economists don’t even know sometimes what’s going on. It’s like the stock market. People say, well, drop 500 points. Why did it? It’s like no particular reason. People are covering shorts maybe you know it’s just like or whatever the new use is. I know that there’s, you were talking about like fitness places and stuff. Are you, what type of new uses are you seeing that the city has to sort of work into the into the regulations that don’t exist like that’s not enumerated out there? Are they specific?

00:16:55 – Shaun Adams

So using fitness studio as an example we have health and fitness centers in our code currently and they’re in C2 and that typically is your LA Fitnesses, things of that nature. And so when you think about Stretch Lab and Cryotherapy and Alloy Personal Training and some of those ones that you see in the Forum, they can go in under that already because it’s a C2 or it’s a mixed use development. But C2 uses are allowed in there. What we are finding is some of our buildings that are office buildings, how they’re zoned O&I or zoned M1, those uses aren’t contemplated because they tend to be retail heavy. But on a smaller scale, 4,000 square foot fitness studio or CrossFit box or something like that may be a good amenity to put in the main floor of an office building to support the tenants out of there. But our code wasn’t allowing for it. So as we identify some of those uses, we’re trying to make sure that, okay, we’re not opening a pandora’s box of allowing them to go somewhere where they don’t make sense. But as long as they’re an accessory and supporting to the overall office environment, then we want to allow that. So that’s one great example. And that’s why that one was put in there. The kind of social hobbyist clubs that you’ve seen, you know, we’ve talked a little bit about the car storage, car club. We’ve seen other, I’ve seen golf simulator clubs come in that kind of blend a business club environment, but have that simulator component to it. I’ve seen those in different jurisdictions and just wanting to make sure that if it’s something that fits in an office building as it currently stands and can be, you know, a supporting amenity and draw an attraction to the tenants there, then want to make sure our code, you know, allows for it because that’s only going to help them lease it up.

00:18:44 – Rico Figliolini

Right. I think we, at some point, talked about, I think Brian Johnson and I, at some point, talked about, or at least I brought it up, about use is a larger use, if you will. I’m always thinking that there’s 500 acres there. And like you said before, just because of the nature of the beast, some things evolve, these nodes are created and such. Is there even thought or discussion, have you heard from brokers, on bringing in larger campus-type development into an area? GSU, for example, has several satellite campuses throughout the city. One in Dunwoody, for example. Georgia Tech has done that, I think, or UGA in several ways, places. And that’s just education hubs like that. Has that ever come up? Or even has, because we’re autonomous vehicle and autonomous smart city focused, there’s also pharmaceutical biofabrication companies, those types of companies. You know, just a different, have you heard anything, or has anyone talked about that, like diversifying the type of businesses here in the city?

00:20:04 – Shaun Adams

From a development standpoint, our team is certainly looking out there and trying to attract, whether it’s suppliers to some of our existing companies that are here in the area, the Intuitives of the world, people of that nature, also life sciences, those types of groups, certainly wanting to try to attract them in where we can using Curiosity Lab and what we do there to maintain that technology focus of Tech Park. We don’t want to lose that where we are. So we’re hoping that by doing more and maybe even looking at opportunities for the testing that goes on at Curiosity Lab, thinking about it on a larger scale than a test track or a facility, but where our opportunities to partner with businesses within the area to test certain technologies, maybe on their property or around it, that type of thing. I mean, I’m not in the middle of that every day. That’s more kind of the ag dev side, but I certainly touch it and support it where I can. I haven’t had people kicking tires on it recently from that standpoint, but I think certainly I know Georgia Tech teaches some classes up here already, you know, any opportunity to bring institutional in that supports the businesses around or kind of supplier or accessory users to some of our larger corporations that are here. That’s definitely a focus of our economic development team.

00:21:35 – Rico Figliolini

 Okay. Moving away from that a little bit, did the moratorium include changing some regulations with regard to actual development, like the actual building of buildings or the actual renovation of buildings where we have an opportunity if someone comes in for a special use permit or for redevelopment to say, okay, I think we’ve learned something over the last two years. Maybe we want more. If there’s going to be a residential component to something, we want to make sure that, I don’t know, it’s LED certified or it’s individually wired units. I know that’s part of some of the zoning, but is any of that being revisited?

00:22:19 – Shaun Adams

Certainly. I mean, one of the things that, I mean, the small area plan itself is going to be focused on kind of the nodes and maybe what goes there, generally speaking. But what I’ve talked with the consultants about is as we identify gaps in our code to be able to achieve what we’re trying to do. The plan, recommendations for tax amendments in that regard is important as well. And that goes to the regulation just from the building side. I mean, one of the things, you know, I kind of intentionally did with a couple of the development proposals that came through recently was get a little more specific on the elevations and especially elevations that touch or have visibility to public right-of-way to ensure that we can as closely as we can get it to come out of the ground as it looks on paper you know we want to be able to do that because if you’re selling a vision we want that vision to be reality and not you know an alternate you know universe of it kind of thing. So I’ve done that by virtue of conditions where I can, because when you put it in code, right, you might find yourself in an unintended consequence of not having the flexibility. But we are intentional about that. I will say we’ll probably see a couple of new zoning districts come out of this to kind of help bring us up to what the market is really looking for. For example, we have one mixed use development in our code right now, and it’s three uses. It’s 32 plus units an acre. The way the uses are identified is office, residential, and retail. We’ve kind of interpreted public uses such as a trail as a use in previous districts. And that may make sense for a kind of downtown core where you need a ton of residential to support the retail because it’s a retail heavy center like Town Center and the Forum but it may not make sense in Tech Park where you’re activating a utilized space so looking at more of maybe say a commercial mixed use where it stays commercial heavy you’re preserving the office the redevelopment of any retail and or residential that exists is more supporting its accessory or you know and supporting to the commercial property creating an opportunity for that where it might make sense. And then also we don’t have a code that allows for a mix of housing types under one subdivision, if you will, or development. So, for instance, Gwinnett County has a traditional neighborhood development zoning district where you can have a mix of townhomes to three different lot size single family detached home under one development. And, you know, part of what we’re seeing now, we’re clamoring for built-for-equity products. We’re a redevelopment city. We don’t have big swaths of green space to be able to develop estate-sized subdivisions on anymore. So how can we be creative about the space that we have, the infill opportunities we have, to put developments on there that attract the buyers that we need. We need housing for seniors. We’ve heard them say, look, I want empty nester style housing, but I still want to own it. Okay. So we want to find that product type for you. I’ve heard a phrase, first stroller generation recently. So you’ve got young professionals, but then as they get married and they have that first baby to push that first stroller, their thoughts on what their home life is going to be is different than the young professional, and maybe it’s still single or married without kids. And so how do we create those opportunities for them at an attainable price point? And you have certain fixed costs in construction that you can’t control. And so one way you can control it is being creative about setbacks, lot sizes, density, and things of that nature. And so looking for opportunities to allow for that. So we don’t have just a bunch of townhomes either coming in. How can we mix product types into smaller infill developments, getting the density that somebody may need to justify the product or the project while providing a product that the market’s actually looking for.

00:26:32 – Rico Figliolini

Obviously, that makes sense to me. There’s different needs, right? Different age groups have different needs, like you said. And some of them may not want the large land, but they may want. I’ve seen developments like, for example, I think it was Trellith, Georgia. That’s where the big studio is. And some other places similar to that where you do have some mix of housing where it’s townhomes. It’s sort of single family also on a really small plot of land, but big enough for a family, but it’s still separate, right, separate pieces. Some people might say it’s on postage-size land, but they have a backyard, and they might have even four bedrooms in that house, or five even, with a nice deck, let’s say. I know it was in Canada. It was the same way. It was this development where it was mixed use, and I walked into this house. And it seemed small in the front. It was a one-car a two-car garage, with a side entrance. But it was a five-bedroom, three stories, beautiful house, the small deck on back. And then a really nice backyard also. But small, nicely done, craftsman style and stuff. I don’t know what that would cost here in the States, but over there, it wasn’t too bad. So, but space. Maybe within that development, you know, Pocket Park or whatever. I mean, are you thinking along those lines? I mean, Medlock Bridge Road, for example, is full of houses on one side that are these big lot houses. At some point, those may change. I mean, those are, I don’t know if they’re one acre or two acre lots. I mean, they may, you know, over the next 10, 20 years, change and become something else. High density. Are you looking at that? Is that some of the, because that’s within the Central Business District map, I think.

00:28:36 – Shaun Adams

So actually after the hexagon building going down Medlock, I think in the 2045 update, some of that has been dubbed village residential to create that transitional density coming off of Town Center and going towards Spalding, South Peachtree. Because you have a mix of towns and smaller lots, single family subdivisions there now. And so acknowledging the fact that those one and a half, two acre older homes may at some point in time be sought for redevelopment. How do we want that to look and how can it assimilate, you know, bring those two character areas and planning nodes together in a logical flow. And so that has been contemplated there, but I’ve also seen some of these developments occur on 12 to 18 acre sites. So you don’t need 40 acres, 30 acres to do it. And so being able to create that opportunity and in reality, you know, I hate to say high density in that regard because people assume, you know, multifamily or something, you know, like that. In most cases, those developments can do it at 10 units an acre or less, which is really more of a townhome density, you know, just like a bunch of townhomes. And so to me, there’s as much of an architectural benefit and design benefit to that because you’re seeing differing product types. Some people don’t want their wall to be shared with another family. So even if it’s a five-foot setback, side setback, that alone, it’s effectively a townhome, but that alone to them feels different.

00:30:07 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. Yeah, yeah. I agree. I’ve seen that. Anything else that’s with the moratorium that we should bring up or discuss? Otherwise, I’d like to move on maybe to some of the stuff that’s going on as well.

00:30:21 – Shaun Adams

Sure. The only other thing that I would say that was probably the biggest, a surprise for me was the request by, especially the broker owners on where we can coordinate with the County, especially with fire and things of that nature. So most people don’t realize that since we don’t have fire inspection, fire marshal and house of the city, that still goes to the county as well as anything water sewer related and so you know they can work in parallel with permitting and things of that nature but we are actively working with our building side to create better coordination with Gwinnett. But hearing that it’s at a point where sometimes it impacts a tenant coming in because they have a tight timeline and when they need to be up and operational was something that I thought was great feedback. That’s a process thing that we can work on and kind of push Gwinnett on for really is what it is. Pushing Gwinnett on more and seeing how we can help them turn around their inspections faster and keep things moving within the permitting side of the house.

00:31:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, that is great for you. I never thought about that. You’re right. I mean, it’s just like that’s outside the city’s responsibility at this point, but cutting the red tape would be good. Any other surprising stuff that you found?

00:31:44 – Shaun Adams

In the realm of surprising, not really. I think there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve heard more and just getting more of that kind of consensus within that kind of helps understand the direction of where we want to go. But I think it’s shaping out nicely. I think the community will – I look forward to more of their feedback and really, if anything, being able, since I wasn’t on staff when the update happened two years ago, but being a resident, I attended a couple of those myself. I really look forward to seeing to the extent that there are changes in the thought process just in the last two years, you know, from the update to now, I’m really looking forward to that feedback and seeing how we can implement it into this proposal and make this time well worth it.

00:32:28 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, interesting. I’m sure there will be more unique feedback. I mean, there’s a lot more people that have come in over the last two years. So it will be interesting. Moving away from this for a little bit, what are the developments or what other things are coming up that people should be aware of over the next two months besides this that you’re aware of?

00:32:54 – Shaun Adams

So on the new front, I mean, I guess one last thing I would say that kind of transitioned us is, you know, I know we’ve talked about 25 Tech Park South before the 13 condos, but as a part of that, they’re agreeing to create, provide the easement for a trail connection around that lake. So we already have existing trail around the Ashrae site. We already have agreement and principle from other office owners to extend it through them, which will now connect to this. So this gets us mostly around Technology Park Lake with that trail. So just an example of when a redevelopment opportunity comes in being able to partner with them to get those other public facing amenities and make it happen faster than what it would if we had to just pick you know go piece by piece on our own ground. So that has been approved and so we would expect to see that you know take. That is a conversion. But outside of that, we don’t have any residential developments or anything right now in the pipeline. What is upcoming on council next week is a second read on a text amendment for the townhome district, the RTH, residential townhome district. The townhome the residential townhome currently the density on it is eight district units an acre. RTH, district, we’re proposing to go to 10 units an acre, which is consistent with what Gwinnett County does and they’ve done for a few years. We’ve seen it in other jurisdictions. And, you know, it’s an up to. So it’s a situation where we’re in a position where we need housing stock where we can. We’re clamoring for bill for equity housing stock where we can. So in certain situations where if a couple extra units an acre make the difference from a developer saying this site only works if it’s multifamily versus this site could work as townhomes. Then, you know, or a bill for equity product, then we want to provide that opportunity to consider it. Just because it says 10 units an acre, though, doesn’t mean council has to thumbs up 10 units an acre. They can say, well, on this particular property, eight units an acre makes sense. So it’s a tool in the toolbox that can be used. So that’s coming before them. We have a pawn shop SUP, which will be located. It’s the same plaza as Tortuga’s on Holcomb Bridge, just north of Crooked Creek. And so that’s an SUP for that. They’ve been in, they have a business existing in Tucker. They’ve been in operation there for 10 years. No issues. Had no reports a predominantly a jewelry reseller really when you listen to kind of the product of what they’re looking to do. The applicant even indicated the planning commission when questions about you know crime and concerns that came up to say that they made a decision a long time ago not to accept tools or anything like that because it’s really hard to track and to ensure that it’s legitimately brought in. And so they limit themselves predominantly to nicer jewelry, stones, things of that nature. And so they’re coming before us for that SUP, where council planning commission had recommended approval. And then we had planning commission last month, we had an in-home daycare SUP. And so that’ll be first read next week in council, and it’ll go before on a second reading public hearing in October.

00:36:23 – Rico Figliolini

So in-home daycare?

00:36:25 – Shaun Adams

Yes.

00:36:26 – Rico Figliolini

Like a daycare or a children’s daycare?

00:36:30 – Shaun Adams

It’s a children’s daycare, but they’re capped at up to six kids. And so, and it’s kind of, you know, I have a quick PSA opportunity on this. Really the SUP is an SUP for customary home occupation. So section 607 of our code is for customary home occupations. And most people don’t realize this, but the way it’s set up is any home-based business that provides a service on or adjacent to the premises or conducts a sale transaction on the premises has to have an SGP. And all of them are technically limited to trip counts of up to six per day so that’s really what this is an SUP for. It’s for a customary home occupation it’s just that the occupation is an in home daycare so they’re only going to have this.

00:37:19 – Rico Figliolini

Okay so similar if it was a hair salon, if you will. Someone was doing hair salon type work, if you will, in a home. Because I’ve seen that sometimes on through Gwinnett County. Yeah. So, okay. So that makes sense.

00:37:36 – Shaun Adams

Hair salons, music teachers who give their lessons on property. If you’re an accountant and you have people meet in your home, that is a service. Your consulting service is being provided on site. Therefore, technically, you should have an SEP. So we know that this probably goes on a lot undetected, unfortunately. But that is kind of where we are with it. And so that’s why they’re there before us. There was an in-home daycare in the same neighborhood recently where that person stopped doing it and this one’s kind of picking it up they’re doing it on their right from the start and so that one prior to actually didn’t have an SUP came in before that was a requirement and so it was kind of grandfathered in if you will. So they’re following the process and going through that so we will see that in October. It will be first next week. And then the last thing is actually not as much zoning, but it’s zoning adjacent, which is the social recreation facility. So if you remember, we had that. I’m going to go through in April on the zoning side, where it’s kind of dealing with the racing simulators, any type of business like that. So adding that to the alcohol ordinance so that it aligns with the zoning code so people will see that ordinance first read next week and public hearing on it in October.

00:38:57 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. But that includes stuff like, well, I mean, VR stuff and that type of stuff, laser tag or escape rooms, I guess. Because there’s no particular zoning for that, I don’t think. Would that work with that?

00:39:15 – Shaun Adams

Correct. So right now, what you see most commonly is indoor recreation facility. But the way that is commonly defined is that the food and beverage is clearly incidental to the rec facility. So when Nitrozone was here, or when you go to a Top Golf or Mario Andretti Racing, that type of thing, the facility is taken up so much by the rec aspect that the food is smaller. But you’re seeing post-COVID response again. You’re seeing more businesses doing smaller footprints. By virtue of that, their alcohol sales might be more than the 20-30% you typically see in code for the bigger ones, but they don’t go over 50%, which is usually that kind of big line. Our code not only didn’t contemplate it in zoning, but also didn’t contemplate the license for it in alcohol. The alcohol portion of it’s now coming through, which aligns with the zoning that was adopted back in, I think, April.

00:40:10 – Rico Figliolini

All right, cool. So it’s never ending. The city has to constantly keep evolving and working and finding new things that they have to attend to, right?

00:40:21 – Shaun Adams

We actually are maintaining a list. As we come across things, we maintain a list of text amendments to take a look at. And then ultimately what we do is we research them, compare them to other jurisdictions to make sure that before we bring it forward, it truly aligns with where we’re trying to go as a city and doesn’t have an unintended consequence. But it’s definitely a revolving situation.

00:40:44 – Rico Figliolini

I’m curious. Every industry has a conference or trade show. Do cities’ management have trade shows where they can go to and find out what other cities are doing across the country? Is there such a thing that you do comparatively? You might find new things that you never thought about even.

00:41:08 – Shaun Adams

So I would say yes, by department. And so actually last week, I was at the City County Institute for Georgia, which is where we get our CLEs. And we get everything there from the do’s and don’ts of what other jurisdictions have experienced, recent case law decisions, the impact of that on our jurisdiction, ordinance amendments, the do’s and don’ts of that. So we get it from that’s the legal side of what I do as well. But we have Planners Association. We have city county managers, both at the state and federal level. So we certainly have opportunities. If anything, you almost have to be strategic about the ones you do attend because you can get to have too many. And so we really try to look at that to make sure that it’s giving a good return on investment when we do go.

00:41:56 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. I mean, there’s a lot of cities around here, Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Roswell, that are doing a lot of different things also. They’re all trying to figure out, like we are, right? Trying to figure out what’s best for the city, for who we are and stuff. So interesting process. So let’s not forget that October then Thursday, October 3rd, 6 to 8 at City Hall is the public meeting about the changes to the land use plan for the Central Business District. If you have any questions, I’m sure Shaun Adams would love to handle some of those. So you can put comments as you watch this into Facebook or YouTube, wherever you’re at, and I’ll make sure that Shaun gets those. We’ll have links in the show notes as well on the website to some of these meeting agendas that you all can look at. Anything else, Shaun, before we wrap up that you’d like to share?

00:42:56 – Shaun Adams

The only other thing that I would encourage everybody to do is go take a look at our website on the community development side. We’ve made some changes recently, and happy to get those over to you so that you can share them. But we have now all of our current land uses are on the page and pretty much anybody, you can get to that page from anywhere, whether it’s the agenda site on our main page or the button. So you can, when you go into current land use pages, you can see the application, you can see a site plan if one was needed, elevations, if it’s a redevelopment you can see the staff report once it’s posted. And then once it’s adopted it goes to an archived section on that same page where you can get, you have the ordinance as well. Anyway this process wheel if you will it’s pretty cool take a look at that so you can understand how development gets through. And at the bottom of that page, we have a couple of different flow charts. So depending on how you like to take in information, I think we pretty well run the gambit on that for you.

00:43:57          Rico Figliolini

I think we have an article on LivinginPeachtreeCorners.com. So if you all visit that, you’ll see that as well. And I’ll have links to that. So it’s a great site. I mean, way, way more, not that it wasn’t transparent before, but way more, much easier to find everything all in one place. So check that out. Shaun, hang in there with me for a second. I just want to say thank you to everyone for joining us. EV Remodeling Inc. is our sponsor of these podcasts and our publications. So go visit them, find out a little bit more about what they do in their remodeling services, renovation work here in the city of Peachtree Corners, or wherever you’re living within the metro area. Their website is evremodelinginc.com. And obviously the city is PeachtreeCornersGA.gov. So go visit them as well. And you can find way more information out there than you need probably. It is a portal of information. So you can get lost in there and find stuff, but check out definitely from that homepage. You’ll see the land use stuff. So check that out, but thank you all for being with us. Appreciate it. Thank you, Shaun.

A podcast with City Manager Brian Johnson

In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Rico Figliolini interviews Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson. They discuss the transformation of 25 Tech Park into a 13-unit condo, a rezoning initiative addressing office space vacancies, and future developments like outdoor parks and trails. They also explore local zoning challenges, parking solutions at The Forum, and community concerns over Jones Bridge Park. Tune in for an insightful update on city planning, public safety, and the evolving landscape of Peachtree Corners.  

Resources:
Peachtree Corners Website: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/
Current Land Use Cases: https://www.peachtreecornersga.gov/1406/Current-Land-Use-Cases

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Introduction and 25 Tech Park Condo Conversion
00:02:21 – Rezoning for Residential Conversion of Office Building
00:07:14 – Comparing Home Sizes and Prices in Duluth Area
00:09:48 – Efficient Redesign and Outdoor Space
00:13:47 – Addressing Vacant Office Space and Zoning Changes
00:18:04 – Land Use Planning Process Explained
00:24:36 – Concerns Over Jones Bridge Park Safety and Access
00:31:28 – Securing Community Access and Navigating Challenges
00:34:53 – Evolving Plans for Parking and Retail Development Plans
00:41:52 – Closing Thoughts

Podcast Transcript

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. This is Labor Day weekend, interviewing and talking with Brian Johnson, our city manager. Hey, Brian.

00:00:11 – Brian Johnson

Rico, how are you?

00:00:13 – Rico Figliolini

Good, good. Thanks for being with us. This episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about 25 Tech Park and the 13-unit condo unit that’s going to be working out of that building. And we’re also going to talk a little bit about what the RDA is doing with new buildings coming out and some of the rules in that. And then we’ll recap a little bit with Jones Bridge Park and what’s going on there. And some update on that. So why don’t we start? So 25 Tech Park, Technology Park Way, is where a 13-unit condo development is going to go. And it’s literally going into an office building that’s going to be gutted out versus it being torn down and going on that. So tell us how that’s working and why they chose to do that versus tearing it all down and maybe building 40 townhomes there, which they could, right?

00:01:12 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, they could. So this one is a little bit unique in that it’s actually, to back up, it’s actually 25 Tech Park South. Believe it or not, they’re in the infinite wisdom of whoever named the streets inside of technology park. We have technology parkway, which runs essentially parallel to PIB to Peachtree Parkway, you know, in the middle of, of the split and the connection coming off into Tech Park, coming off of, I guess it’s now Peachtree Boulevard, not PIB, but coming off of there into Tech Park Atlanta, there’s a small stretch of road that links up Peachtree Boulevard and Technology Parkway. And of all the words that could have been used, they decided to call it Tech Park South or Technology Parkway South, which it doesn’t even really run north-south, but regardless, that’s where it is. And this is an example of a property owner who’s owned the office building for 25 plus years and approached the city with this rezoning request because the building’s use for office only is such that he doesn’t believe he could generate the amount of you know, rent that he could by doing something else and the current condition of the building is older so it’s not competitive for those who are really looking for. So he would have to put money into renovating it. And he just said the money to put into renovating something merely to chase, you know, less office occupants than we’ve had, you know, maybe ever. And so he said, I want to do something different. He is a, he’s a resident, really a age-restricted or retirement community developer by trade. So he has residential development experience and wanted to do that here. It’s the first time we’ve allowed resident or residential development inside of tech park not on the main corridor like on 141 or you know Peachtree Boulevard. So he came in and asked for 13, it to be rezoned for 13 condo or equity units and came to that number because he’s taking the existing building and he’s gutting it and turning that into residential units. It’s a building that overlooks the lake in Tech Park. So it is in a good location, easy access to two main roads out there. And the product or the target audience for the residential units are going to be a target unit we’ve talked about here recently, which is either the empty nester who has owned a house in Peachtree Corners for a long time. They don’t have kids. They want to downsize, but they don’t want to leave the area. And they’d like to buy something and not rent. And there’s nothing really here for them to buy that doesn’t basically take what they could get out of their house and put all of it into something else. An example of that would be Waterside. Some of the complaints from people is those units are as expensive as the home that I would sell to move over there. What’s the point? And so the empty nester, and it’s not so, you know, too expensive or the, call it the earlier home buyer or equity purchaser. By earlier, I mean, it might be the very first time somebody buys something. And so they’re not in a position to buy something that’s you know approaching a million dollars and, but they want to and they like the area so it could be that missing middle, you know or the early purchaser or the empty nester. So to be able to do that and still be you know have market rates and not be any kind of a rent control, you know, situation, the developer doesn’t want to do more units than he’s asking. The city actually was interested in that’s a product we desperately need. And he could have as many as maybe 40 of these units if he had demoed the building and built a new building and went higher than the two stories it currently is, maybe two additional stories. But wasn’t interested because, he felt like it would of course, a lot more headache and everything than a reno. And he felt like it would push the price point above the one he wants to hit, which is five, he wants to maybe try to keep it at six or below. And he doesn’t feel like he can do it if he has to scrape and do a complete rebuild because the construction costs would be higher, so you’d have to put more.

00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini

Do you remember how many square feet these units are?

00:07:12 – Brian Johnson

Each one? No. I do believe we can pull that up as we’re talking.

00:07:19 – Rico Figliolini

The interesting part to me, I was looking at homes just recently with my son. And he was looking at Duluth for argument’s sake, just kicking stuff around. 1,400 square foot, $400,000. I mean, some of them are not good looking homes. They’re in also older neighborhoods, like old neighborhoods, like 40-year-old neighborhoods, probably 50, or 40 maybe, or somewhere around there. But they were like 400 grand for like 1,400 or 1,300 square foot home, which is small for that amount of money. And you really couldn’t find anything for less than that. I mean, essentially a starter home for most people will be around, in this area at least, Duluth, Peachtree Corners, forget Berkeley Lake. It would be somewhere around $400,000 if you’re lucky to get that for a small home. So you’re really looking at maybe half a million for a decent, what you can call starter home maybe.

00:08:23 – Brian Johnson

Right. Yeah, and that’s where we’re at. So, you know, he’s trying to, I’m trying to see if I can find the square footage. Alright here it is. Looks like there’s going to be two types of units. Six of the units are 2 000 square feet, three bedroom, three bath. And the remaining units looks like will be 1,500 square feet, two bedroom, three bath. And it’ll have direct access to, oh, and what’s part of this rezoning is for the developer to put in the section of our multi-use trail that goes around that lake. So it now we’ve also got verbal commitment from the owner of the only property that’s in between this one we’re talking about and Ashray, which is where our current trail ends. They are very open for us to do the trail at the back of there. So it looks like we’ll be all the way around almost to be able to link up to what Cortland did way back when it was built, what, eight years ago, seven years ago?

00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini

I think Cortland Apartments you’re talking about, which was called something else before that, I think. So, interesting to me when you mentioned that, about actually working in the same building, because we at one point talked about repurposing office buildings. That it’s not easy to do that, it’s actually difficult to do that because the plumbing doesn’t, you know, people look at that and say why can’t they repurpose? Well, if you look at a typical office building, the restrooms are probably in the center or in a certain place. And so they’re not all spread out and you have to work your piping and all that. So my assumption is they’re going to gut out this building totally and rework the piping to be able to make it work. It sounds like to me.

00:10:38 – Brian Johnson

It’s only two stories. And it’s built into the slope as it slopes away from, you know, the property slopes away from Technology Parkway South down towards the lake. So each of the units will enter at grade for them. So there’s no stairs in these units.

00:10:59 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Yeah, I’m looking at the elevation plan.

00:11:01 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, stacked over each other. So that’s, you know it saves ADA compliance they don’t have to put you know graders in. And they, the I guess the joists in between the two floors were built in such a way that there’s a lot of room for them to then rerun plumbing. And since it’s two stories if they rerun it they just get to go both directions, you know have the unit. So it just it was you know one of those where it worked out the way the building was built. So I mean again we’d love to have more of this product. But, you know.

00:11:46 – Rico Figliolini

Right. So I’m looking, yeah, and I’m looking at the, I guess the survey plot because there’s a lot of parking around there. So what are they doing with that? Because apparently, you know, I mean, it’s 13 units, and I can’t see 13 units using all that parking around it.

00:12:11 – Brian Johnson

They’re reducing the impervious surface footprint of the property by over 13,000 square feet.

00:12:20 – Rico Figliolini

Okay.

00:12:30 – Brian Johnson

And so the parking, let’s see the total parking spaces on there is 46 for this. Which is a pretty significant reduction. What they’re doing with the parking spots that they’re ripping out is putting in a park, an outdoor area for the residents.

00:12:44 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. No amenities, just a park area? I’m just wondering, is that along the trail? Probably?

00:12:56 – Brian Johnson

It is. So you know the course the trail will be right along the shoreline of the lake including much like if you’ve been on it behind Ashray some of it’s out on piers even out from. So there’ll be a lot of that there. And they’ll have a connection from that section out to the road so you can get out to the sidewalk there and to walk parts. And then that green space that they’re creating is just going to be for the residents. And it’s not activated. I think it’ll probably be seating and maybe trees and maybe something. So not big and not open to everybody. You don’t need it.

00:13:40 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. This has been going on for a while too, I think, right? Their application’s been in there for a while. So this obviously was approved just recently at this last city council meeting.

00:13:51 – Brian Johnson

Yes, this last one.

00:14:01 – Rico Figliolini

So we have a moratorium going on right now. Which will end at some point soon. There’s going to be a meeting set up and an open house, probably October 5th, if I remember correctly. That people, it’s a public meeting. People will be able to go to talk about some of the improvement to code, regulations, dealing with buildings, redevelopment. Want to just talk briefly about that? We’re going to have another podcast on this with Sean Adams about this. But if you could just speak to it.

00:14:32 – Brian Johnson

Because I have somebody who’s more of a subject matter expert than me, and that’s Sean. But what we did is we wanted to and you know I think if those who keep up with this stuff know we started to have a quite a significant increase in larger rezoning requests coming into the city kind of our central business district if you will. We had some really big ones, the Da Vinci Court, Day Building. That’s just a year after you had some other significant ones like at the Forum. And we know that with the office product, the office market being as soft and under, you know, significant duress right now, that combined with we had office product owners starting to come to the city with all sorts of, some of them unique, some of them you could maybe go so far as to say weird or like uses that we’re like, eh. But some of them were in a gray area because you’ve never had a situation where existing office product was envisioned to ever have some of these uses. So code doesn’t specifically speak to it. So it started to get worse. So we were like, we need to just take a pause. And this moratorium is again, only for a certain area of the city, only for certain uses. And in fact, the 25 Tech Park South is the last one that got in that their application came in before the moratorium started, which is why these things take a while to get through the system, if you will, the process. And we just knew that we needed to relook at our code. We needed to add protections where we might need to add protections. We needed to add language where it might be, we want some of the uses that these owners have been proposing. We wanted to be flexible so that we weren’t sitting on office product that not only was vacant and not generating any revenue for the cities through our occupational tax, which is one of our most significant revenue streams since we don’t have city property tax, but we didn’t want office product to not only you know go vacant from that standpoint but vacant office product is not climate controlled it starts to fall apart quicker when people aren’t in it taking care of it and you just run the risk of the building going down into a state of disrepair such that then nobody would ever want it. And then you get into problems beyond that.

00:17:29 – Rico Figliolini

So having that moratorium, which comes to an end soon, is a smart move, I think, right? And giving the city an opportunity to address all those issues. So that’s coming up to a public meeting too because there’ll be suggestions of what those changes are.

00:17:49 – Brian Johnson

Our internal experts and some external consultants and land use experts have been working on this together. And they are about ready to have, again, a product that’s worthy of the public hearing and weighing in on. That’ll be the October 5th date open house where you can come in and in and see what’s being proposed. At the end of that, there’s a little bit of time that we can take any input from the public and tweak it, and then it’ll go in front of planning commission and then ultimately in front of city council.

00:18:29 – Rico Figliolini

What I want to point out to people, too, is that the city’s taken an improvement to the website. So if you’re looking at land use plans and such, it was a little bit more difficult to find that, not because it was being hidden, but just because government websites aren’t always the easiest to navigate. But you all have really improved the website quite a bit communication-wise. And although there may be people out there that feel that they’re not aware of what’s going on, stuff is getting out there in a variety of ways. Not everyone’s listening. There’s a lot of noise out there and stuff. But you all did a good job with, there’s a link on the website I’d like people to know called Land Use Cases. This is at the city’s website, right on the homepage. If you go there, you can actually see the current land use cases that are filed and active, along with their application, the site plan, staff report, when the first public hearing is, or read rather, and when the second read is, which is the public hearing where comments could be made and such. So a lot of information here. And there’s one, two, three, four, there’s five cases right now active as we speak. One of them was approved. That was the 25 Technology Parkway South. So if you’re interested in what’s coming up, this is the page to go to. These are the things that you can look at.

00:19:53 – Brian Johnson

And then don’t forget, like, we’re going to change it based on your suggestion, Rico, but it’ll essentially say how does an application become a product or a project? How does an application ultimately become a project? And we created four different ways that somebody might be able to kind of see. And it is complicated. There’s a lot of law involved, a lot of public meeting and, you know public hearing requirements I mean it’s a big deal as we all know. So we describe the process in four different like ways and so for somebody who wants to know, well how does almost like how does a bill become a law this is essentially how an application become a project.

00:20:45 – Rico Figliolini

That’s right. It’s really easy. It’s really easy. The first part that you go to is how does land use application become approved project? And it shows 13 steps. And it’ll explain each one of the steps from pre-application meeting all the way to fees paid all the way to public hearings all the way to planning and commission public hearing. I mean it’s 13 steps through this before you finally get to permitting the piece. But it’s, so for anyone that doesn’t know the process,it is a long process to do this and does take time.

00:21:23 – Brian Johnson

It is. And you know when you do it and all the arrows that you’re going around, you know, you’re like, wow, there are a lot of steps, but there needs to be. And, you know, our steps are the same steps that everybody else, every other local government has to go through. You know, there’s some slightly different ways they do some of those steps, but we all have to go through those steps. So hopefully this will make it a little bit easier. And then hopefully this may, it’s a little bit easier to understand the process and specific cases a little bit easier to find them. I believe now there are seven different vectors in which you can get to the same land use document. You can get to it from the council agenda or a planning commission agenda. If you happen to know that, you can get to it from our calendar. If you know the date, you can get to it from the department, from the homepage. Any way we could think of that somebody might think, oh, I want to find that information. We link it to the same, you know, packet of documents that you described. Hopefully it makes it a little bit easier. And this is based on things we were working on and some input from the community. So, yeah.

00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini

No, this is terrific improvement. I haven’t, usually city government and county websites. It’s a very difficult process to, to find things because it’s, because of the way it’s done. It’s, they’re not companies, you know, doing, making things easier because it’s commercially viable for them to. It’s not an apple website or you know but you all have improved it and it’s so much easier now to find those applications than it was before.

00:23:12 – Brian Johnson

You know Rico, our biggest challenge, most government’s biggest challenge when it comes website, is too much information. Because everybody you know, by law, we have to be transparent. And then beyond the minimum transparencies, if you will, residents, citizens are always saying, you know, well, I didn’t know that, or where do I find that information? You should make it, you know, publicly accessible. Well, our website is the epicenter of that. Everything linked to that. Social media posts link back to the website, newsletters back to the website. So our website is constantly under pressure to put more because people are like, that should have been made available to the public. Well, how do you make it available? You put it on the website. And so it is a challenge for us to make it, put lots of things on the website, but not make it so crammed and condensed that it’s just hard to find. And that challenge you just brought up is a real challenge that we will struggle with probably all the time.

00:24:23 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I’m sure. And there’s a lot. I mean, just doing the drop-down menus, you could see dozens of choices of where to go. And the website is chock full of information. I mean, it’s a tremendous amount of information, depending on who you are and what you’re looking for. So I wanted to actually touch upon something else too that we spoke about last time, which was Jones Bridge Park and what’s going on there. There’s some updates. I know there’s a public meeting that’s going to be held, let me just say that, October 15th at 2:00 at Pinckneyville Community Center. So it’s being held by the community group that, you know, very intimate knowledge of Jones Bridge Park. A lot of stuff going on there. So we talked a little bit about it. But if you could give us, again, a brief about where we are with this, that would be great.

00:25:23 – Brian Johnson

Well, this is kind of this meeting that you just referred to and some previous ones are the result of residents who live in homes that are up against Jones Bridge Park or nearby, you know, neighborhoods that suffer the loss of quality of life at best. If not, there have been instances where somebody ran from police down into Jones Bridge Park. It’s a dead end. They bail and they’re running through neighborhoods in the middle of the night with, you know, law enforcement chasing them, including aviation units like their helicopter up with searchlights. And so, you know, there’s some concerns. And Jones Bridge Park is unique in that it’s one of the few parks, and least in North Metro Atlanta, that has access to the Chattahoochee River all the way down to where there are man-made improvements for you to get into the river versus like walking down, unimproved, you know, wet bank. It’s also one of the few places that has, I wouldn’t call them rapids, but some whitewater right there.

00:26:58 – Rico Figliolini

They have rocks that were added, outcrops to the river and such.

00:27:02 – Brian Johnson

Right. And then it’s been improved over the years to have lots of covered pavilion, you know, barbecue pits, things like that, playgrounds. So it’s a big park and it’s popular for those who might not have access to pools or want or barbecue or just playgrounds. But unfortunately, when the park closes there are people who like to go back in there and it’s a big park and it goes way back, winds way back in there. And the residents have brought up some concerns and you know the authority, not the ultimate authority, but the ultimate responsible party is Gwinnett County because it’s a Parks and Rec Department asset. And residents are concerned that there’s access to the park because there’s not a gate that’s being closed when the park closes. And so people go back there. And it’s a minority of the time if there’s somebody back there that when Gwinnett PD is even either notified or able to send an asset there to deal with a trespasser and as a result people go back there and they do some pretty, I mean, we’ve had, you know, gunfire back there. Luckily, nobody.

00:28:20 – Rico Figliolini

Six times.

00:28:22 – Brian Johnson

Yeah. And then a lot of vehicular stuff, even short drag racing, doing donuts back there, speakers. You know, you’re talking about, you know like it, I think the hours are dawn to dusk of the park and so you know depending on when, what time of the year it could be you know as early as six or seven where it’s dark and people are still doing things. And so people go back there loud music, drugs. We’ve had a lot of inappropriate behavior back there. And, you know, Gwinnett responds when Gwinnett can respond, but it’s not been enough for the residents to feel like their quality of life and safety is being protected. And so this frustration is born out of that.

00:29:25 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. There are definitely a lot more people using the park over the past few years than there were before. So I think it’s just gotten more aggravating for people.

00:29:37 – Brian Johnson

I mean, Metro Atlanta is growing, so it’s not going to get any less.

00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini

No, it’s just trying to figure out how to, you know, I know the city was going to pay for the gate, the timed gate to go down and the maintenance of it is negligible over a year. But, you know, I mean, that’s the county right?

00:30:02 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, so the county you know the Parks and Rec Department of Gwinnett County, it’s their facility. Them not closing and opening a gate you know their contention is we don’t have the staff to do that. But the residents themselves have offered to be the ones to do that. You know like look let us open and close it every day so at least we prevent it, they haven’t wanted to do that. I don’t know the reason. I suspect it might be that, well, you know, what happens if they close it and then they don’t open it, you know, early enough so it gets the next day or what, I don’t know. I would submit that you know I think we talked about last time where the fields club has multiple facilities and they have, and multiple entrances to multiple facilities and the fields club doesn’t have staff to be able to open and close it every day. So the residents that are nearby there just kind of basically they just because they’re, you know, oftentimes 10 feet away from the gate or not much farther. They just kind of, you know, organize a little spreadsheet. Hey, Rico, you’ll do it on this day. I’ll do it this day. And you just go out and there and close it, unlocked it and it’s unlocked the next day. And when it started, I remember, you know, Fields Club happened to be on the board saying, look, if this doesn’t work out well, we’re going to have to, you know, not allow you to do that anymore. You know, if you’re locking it before somebody can get out and they had, you know, the authority to be back there or whatever. It’s worked out well so I’m not sure why Gwinnett didn’t say we’ll let you try it unless you screw it up and then we’ll you know remove that. But they just said no thanks so then at the city we offered to buy and have installed a vehicular gate similar to what you see at say railroad crossings gate. We researched ones that automatically go down at a certain time and go back up at another time so it could be programmed to do it automatically and it was remotely accessible so that emergency services could have it go up, you know, if they needed to get back there. And we offered to donate and install it if Gwinnett would then take it over, because it would be securing their park and it would be at their entrance. And we don’t have the authority to restrict some access to property that the city doesn’t own. And we, the company that quoted the price for the purchase and install also gave us a price of about a thousand dollars for the annual maintenance for this company to do annual maintenance and for them to have the remote accessibility. So it would have been, they accepted it, you know, $1,000 a year. Mind you, this is an organization that has over a billion dollar budget. But $1,000 a year and they have declined that option as well. So I’m not sure where we will go. We will also have a presence at that October meeting. Yeah, the 15th. We’ll have a presence at that meeting as well. Our marshals will. But unfortunately, it’s not going to get better. We’ve got to figure out something. And so hopefully we can.

00:33:45 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. It’s always one thing or another that goes on in the city. Everything from Town Center, parking deck, to the Forum, to all these other places. There was just another purchase done in the community of the $9 million purchase of the shopping center on Holcomb Bridge Road, where there used to be the Outback Center. The restaurant used to be there, but that’s where you’ll see Peachtree Corners Eye Clinic, Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell. So that property was just purchased.

00:34:02 – Brian Johnson

Well, you know, North American property was just bought by Jamestown.

00:34:08 – Rico Figliolini

There you go. There was another, right. And I spoke to someone from North American Properties. Nothing will change. Apparently, it will continue on with the plan that they have, the improvements that they want to do. So, you know, but yeah, things change, right?

00:34:39 – Brian Johnson

They do. And you know, no government can say, well, you know, you can never sell it or you can never do this. We’d love to, but we can’t ensure that a company remains a viable company. Companies go out of business. They merge. They make business decisions to go different directions. I mean, it is an ever evolving thing. And so you try to build in protections against the worst case from happening. But, you know, legally, we can only go so far, we just want to make sure we go as far as the law allows us to restrict certain things from happening after that initial change.

00:35:27 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, we’re fortunate that we have a good neighbor there, for example, at the Forum. I mean, they just opened the plaza. They’re going to move on to, I think, the parking deck later next year or something.

00:35:40 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, they’re working on it because that’ll be next. Yeah that’s, certainly there are people who have been complaining about why would they remove some parking if they didn’t already have a, and you know it’s not.

00:35:54 – Rico Figliolini

It’s just a nicer looking place now.

00:35:57 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, it is. Well, I will say an update on the parking though, they have made the decision that it’s more cost effective for them to take the overflow parking for you know, those who are visiting the proper, shoppers if you will, and they were going to move that and put it in the service parking lot by Belk. But given the amount of utilities, storm water, water and sewer, everything that are underground and what it would take, they’re going to add it to the pedestal that will be part of the parking for the apartments and the hotel on each side of the front entrance. So if you’re coming in off of 141 there’ll be a parking decks on both sides as you’re going down kind of the angle towards the fountain and that’s, they’re going to add another level on each side for the shoppers to park at. And then those who are either in the multifamily or the hotel are in other levels. So that’ll be where, it’s called Pedestal. It’s built in where you have the units above it. And that’s where, so, you know, really it’s the same distance of a walk. Maybe it’s a little bit easier to get to it, drive into it. So you wouldn’t have to do the fountain and across the way to the back.

00:37:36 – Rico Figliolini

So when would that happen then?

00:37:38 – Brian Johnson

It’s still happening at the same time. It’s just, they’re going to build the parking for the shoppers first. So that’s going to continue to go up above it when it’s time for the hotel or the multifamily to go in.

00:37:56 – Rico Figliolini

So when you’re driving up, there’s a part where it sinks down on either side. So we’re going to build, and that’s parking right there also, but they’re going to build the deck then onto that parking, those parking spaces.

00:38:09 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, well, I’m not so sure that they’ll do one level below it and then keep going. When you’re driving down from Peachtree Parkway to Forum Drive, you’re driving to the fountain.

00:38:23 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:38:24 – Brian Johnson

On each side, there is, you know, below that ramp down there, there’s, one’s behind, what is it? Ulta? I think it’s the back of Ulta, and the other one is the back of Barnes & Noble.

00:38:37 – Rico Figliolini

It’s not Ulta, I don’t think. Ulta’s on the other side. So it’s behind Barnes & Noble, and then, I forget what the retail is over there.  It’s a retail store. I forget what that is.

00:38:49 – Brian Johnson

It’s typically where you’re going to go.

00:38:52 – Rico Figliolini

And they’re still, I know they’re still able to do the apartments is what they want to do above that area. Are they still the Indigo, a boutique hotel of some sort? They’re supposed to be on the other side, I think.

00:39:05 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, the only change is just moving the shoppers’ parking from where the Belks was to closer to the road.

00:39:15 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. So they’re not doing anything back there like you said because of utilities? And because I drove back there recently I would stop back there this past weekend to go up to you know to do some shopping. And I noticed the utilities and stuff like that I was wondering how they would build that out there.

00:39:33 – Brian Johnson

it just was more expensive to do all that than it is to add a level on the two sides of the main entrance so yeah which was a decision

00:39:42 – Rico Figliolini

Because I was thinking also, because isn’t that retaining wall back there too, I think? The weight of that parking deck on there, I was thinking it’s going to be tremendous with the deck and the cars. It was just like, can they hold it?

00:39:55 – Brian Johnson

They were going to have pillings. But they were going to have to relocate utility lines. You start getting into, and I think there’s also Georgia Power’s got a, what do they call it?

00:40:10 – Rico Figliolini

Transformer?

00:40:12 – Brian Johnson

Yeah, it’s a station. It does multiple things. It could be a transformer. Anyway, Georgia Power’s got what they need to serve the entire property is back in that parking lot. So, you know, the residents who live back in Amberfield, you know, should be happy because there won’t be any change back there.

00:40:35 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, yeah.

00:40:39 – Brian Johnson

You know, but those who are complaining about, oh, there’s not enough parking because they’ve removed some in the middle, do what they did. I mean, there is parking, plenty of it right now. It’s just you have to walk maybe a little bit farther than finding. And I know that’s frustrating. Who wouldn’t like to park right in front of?

00:41:01 – Rico Figliolini

But if you could park right in front of something, that means there’s not enough business going on, not for anything. That’s really what that is. And if you’re walking and you go to the plaza side, I mean, they’ve done a really nice job there, I think. An area that you can eat, you can hang out there. The more stuff there will be, more of the restaurants. I mean, it’s just going to be a nicer atmosphere to be at, I think. Brian, thank you. It’s been a pleasure learning more about what the city’s doing and stuff. So everyone, thank you for being part of, you know, for listening in. And if you have any questions, for sure, put it into the comments. This is a Simulcast live feed, that you’re listening to on Facebook or YouTube. So we’ll try to answer them post the show. And I’ll put some of the links to some of these things that we talked about in the show notes. That’s where you can find it there as well. But hang in there for a Brian. But thank you again for being with us. And also thank you for our sponsor, EV Remodeling. Eli, who does a great job in building renovation work from start to finish. So check them out. He’s a resident of Peachtree Corners. His website is evremodelinginc.com. Great guy. So check out and we appreciate their support for these podcasts and our publication. Thanks again. Take care, guys.