The site of Dunwoody’s former City Hall is now expected to be home to a massive mixed-use development including 900 condominiums, commercial space and a pocket park.
The Dunwoody City Council approved at its Dec. 10 meeting rezoning nearly 20 acres at 41, 47 and 53 Perimeter Center East to make way for the Park at Perimeter Center East project. The project includes building four residential towers up to 14 stories tall on what is now mostly underutilized surface parking lots, and tearing down one 5-story office building to make room for a new 20-story office tower.
Grubb Properties is expected to build out the project near I-285 and Ashford-Dunwoody Road over the next decade. The council’s Dec. 10 approval for the project came more than a year after Grubb hastily withdrew previous plans when it appeared council members were going to vote to reject the project. At that time, the project included hundreds of apartments, a major point of contention by city officials.
Over the past year, Grubb revised its project and eliminated rental apartments from the project and included only 900 for-sale condos in the four residential towers. The approved project includes preserving the 41 and 47 office buildings and razing the 53 building on the southern portion of the property. A new 20-story tower with 500,000 square feet of Class A office space is planned to be built on the site of the 53 building.
A new 3-acre park will be built in the central area of the development and include public access. Grubb Properties will also construct a pedestrian crossing over Perimeter Center East into the city’s newly constructed 12-foot multi-use path that will bisect the development.
The development includes three parking decks to be built up to seven stories and will be utilized through a shared parking model where residents and office workers will use the same parking facilities.
Current zoning for the 900 condos and nearly 700,000 square feet of office space require 3,232 parking spaces. But because office parking is traditionally used during the day and residential parking is mostly for evening and overnight use, Grubb is pairing up its residential and office parking and say they will only need to build 2,393 parking spaces.
At the request of the council, Grubb said it would make available deeded parking spaces to residents, or parking spaces the resident would own. Clay Grubb, CEO of Grubb Properties, told council members at the meeting spaces would likely cost $25,000 each.
Shuttle access and future pedestrian and bike connectivity to the Dunwoody MARTA station, Perimeter Mall and throughout Perimeter Center are also key components of Grubb’s mission to try to cut down on traffic congestion, according to Clay Grubb. To that end, Grubb has hired Copenhagenize Design Co. to analyze existing conditions and identify bike infrastructure around its mixed-use development and within Perimeter Center.