High on Athens

originally published July 16, 2008

This column was originally published in Flagpole in 1992, before Pete McCommons came to work here. Ignored at the time, in retrospect it is a masterly blueprint for what might have been.

I have a very simple, yet breathtaking solution for our most pressing public problems: the civic center, the parking deck, the proliferation of doctors' offices, a downtown hotel, the fire hall, Atlanta.

The parking deck, the longed-for brainchild of the downtown merchants, sits empty. Nobody wants to use it, not even downtown merchants.

The civic center has been a problem from the beginning; people hated the design and resented the destruction of the old buildings, including the fire hall.

Okay, here goes. We've already paid the architects a million dollars for the civic center design from hell, and we've got several more millions in the parking deck from nowhere.

What do we do? That's right. We give these New York architects a chance to redeem themselves and get our city off the hook. Redesign the civic center and build it right on top of the parking deck.

Do you see it? The solution to both problems. No buildings to be torn down. No more downtown space to be gobbled up.

Put the civic center right on top of the parking garage: suddenly you've got a use for the deck and you've got plenty of parking for the civic center.

But that's not all. Why not contract with Mariott or somebody to put a hotel in there, too. Instead of destroying another downtown block to build a big hotel, just add it on to the parking deck/ civic center.

Beginning to get the picture? Well, while we're at it, why not get really creative? Isn't there some solution to all the doctors creeping around town targeting neighborhoods for destruction so that they can fulfill their need for more offices?

Think globally; act locally: doctor's offices in the downtown building, with bus service to the hospitals right across the street and parking for patients right below in the deck. Hey, that's nothing new: the Southern Mutual Building across the street used to be full of doctors and dentists.

Look what we've got - a multipurpose building that not only serves diverse public needs but solves some of our most pressing public problems.

We've also got ourselves a skyscraper - a megabuilding right in the middle of downtown. Those who want Athens to be more like Atlanta can take pride in our new skyscraper. Those who don't want Athens to be more like Atlanta can be relieved that we've confined Atlanta to one location instead of having it creep in all over town, like the doctors.

Either way, our skyscraper will be a tourist attraction; we might as well add several floors of display areas for our local potters and craftspeople and why not several floors for showcasing the local music scene, some more for retail shops, and with all this going on, we'll also need a movie complex or two.

Now we've got a real skyscraper, one that will tower over the town like a beacon to the surrounding counties. With highway 316 funneling traffic from Atlanta in a year or two, people can come over here to enjoy a skyscraper without all the urban problems that surround the ones in Atlanta.

Now, I know there will be considerable debate about this next point, and I must confess that I am of two minds about it myself. This concerns the problem of the fire hall.

It's true that the skyscraper - let's call it the Atlanta Building - will save the fire hall from destruction by the civic center, but it will also sort of leave it sitting down there all forlorn, looking more like an abandoned chamber of commerce building that a real fire hall.

Here's the clincher; and I say just let the public debate it until we decide one way or another. But it could be a unique and fitting symbol of Athens reaching for the future while respecting the past.

Put the fire hall at the top of our skyscraper. Yes, use the fire hall as the crown of the building. You know how all those Atlanta buildings are competing to see who can have the fanciest top to dominate their skyline.

Well, ours would be absolutely unique. Nobody in Atlanta could ever come up with a design to top it. There, high in the sky for everybody to see would float our beloved fire hall. Think of the civic receptions we could have up there, with all of Athens and northeast Georgia laid out before us like jewels spread before royalty.

I know all this may seem like too much to accomplish, but at least we should try, and this is a way for us all to pull together for a change. We're talking the revitalization of Athens here, folks, and the sky's the limit.

Pete McCommons

editor@flagpole.com