Jim Irwin: BeltLine Needs Rail Despite Growing Opposition

Just two weeks after Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens walked back his support for adding light rail along the Atlanta BeltLine, a developer with two prominent projects along the popular 22-mile pedestrian trail said a transit component is critical to handling the city's burgeoning population.

Jim Irwin, the president of developer New City Properties, which built 725 Ponce and Fourth Ward directly connected to the BeltLine, said he supports adding rail as a way to address worker mobility and create more transit alternatives. 

“If we can do that with transit, then I think it’s a great idea,” Irwin said during Bisnow’s adaptive reuse event Thursday. “It at least needs to be part of a much larger, comprehensive intervention to make moving [around] our city a lot easier.”

BeltLine planners have long envisioned a loop of light rail alongside the pedestrian path. One piece of a streetcar line is under construction, and MARTA is studying the best transit options for a nearly 14-mile stretch of the pathway.

But Dickens raised eyebrows earlier this month when he backtracked on his longtime support for a rail-only solution to mobility around the BeltLine.

“Once we come out with [the MARTA rail study], we’ll make sure the public knows, and we can make a clear decision on do we want it to be on rails, do we want it to be on rubber tires, do we want small pods or do we want to leave this as a walking trail?” Dickens told Atlanta News First earlier this month. 

Dickens' comments come as a group of local stakeholders and business leaders has mounted opposition to the idea of adding transit along the Atlanta BeltLine.

Known as Better Atlanta Transit, the nonprofit organized in October to oppose any plans for rail along the BeltLine, citing concerns about its impact on trees and green space, access for pedestrians along the BeltLine — especially during construction — and the overall costs associated with light rail, the Atlanta Business Chronicle previously reported. Instead, opponents of rail would rather see more bikes, scooters and autonomous vehicles. 

The opposition group includes former Atlanta mayoral candidate and Dentons Senior Counsel Sharon Gay, Lexicon Strategies lobbyist Billy Linville, former Jamestown Properties executive Walter Brown and Renee Glover, the former CEO of Atlanta Housing, the ABC reported.

“Rail is 20th century. We need to look forward, not backward,” Glover told the ABC last year.

Irwin wasn’t the only commercial real estate professional to voice support for BeltLine rail during the event, which was held at the Lee + White project along the path in Atlanta’s West End. 

Page associate principal Anne-Michael Sustman said rail is a key way to cohesively connect the various developments springing up along the BeltLine, as those projects are “pocketed right now.”

“We’re going to continue to see development on the BeltLine, and hopefully all the way around the BeltLine,” Sustman said. “So I think as we start to see that, that’s going to change the way we experience it, which I think will actually change the whole conversation around transit.” 

Irwin said rail along the pedestrian path would benefit lower-wage workers with jobs at projects along the BeltLine who can’t afford to live in the area. New City is weeks away from opening Forth, a 196-room boutique hotel in the Fourth Ward project along the Eastside BeltLine.

The lack of transit has made it a chore for the firm to hire the 350 staffers it needs, Irwin said.

“We’re actually having to build infrastructure in the building to allow people to eat and [shower] … because of how long it will take people to get to work,” Irwin said. “So it’s really about how we run the city and how we make it easy and affordable for people who can’t necessarily live in these projects to get to work.”

Regardless of the fate of mass transit along the BeltLine, more development is slated for areas on and near the pedestrian path, which has proven to be an economic development powerhouse for the city. Officials with the BeltLine Tax Allocation District, first created in 2005, project the zone will generate up to $1.4B in annual impact by 2030.

Developers with sites not near the BeltLine also gave updates on their projects at the event last week. Ben Hautt, the newly minted managing partner of Robles Partners, told Bisnow his firm is in the planning stages to develop a 100K SF adaptive reuse project focused on food and beverage in West Midtown. 

Selig Enterprises Senior Vice President Malloy Peterson said her firm is in the planning process for a second phase of The Works, its 80-acre adaptive reuse project in Midtown’s Upper Westside along Chattahoochee Avenue. 

While the first phase largely consisted of converting the low-slung industrial properties into retail and food and beverage concepts, Peterson said the second phase, which is on 63 acres along Logan Circle, will place more emphasis on multifamily and office.

“We’re going to look at Phase 2 differently,” she said. “It probably will have more density … just to try to get more daytime population.”