Atlantic Station

This place is awful! Do yourself a favor and DO NOT LIVE HERE! This place starts their maintenance here at 7am. I've reached out to a board member that basically told me she doesn't care that we don't want the noise to start at 7am. This should be 8am. Not everyone is awake and wants to be awake at 7am. I hate places that don't care about their residence. Not only do I live here and pay for that I also shop here. THAT STOPS TODAY! DON'T LIVE HERE IS PEACE IS WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR! YOU WON'T FIND IT HERE. THE WORST PART?! THIS AWFUL NOISE HAPPENS AT 7AM ON SATURDAYS TOO! WISH I HAD KNOWN, I ABSOLUTELY WOULD NOT HAVE MOVED HERE!

Whether you want to live a minute away from shopping, dining, theater, art and music, you get it all there. Beside Buckhead, Atlantic Station is the only place I go to for my shopping and dining. I feel save there, since they have their own Public Safety Department and officers are always walking around. Short term parking is available infront of a store, but hard to get. I like the underground parking deck, which gives you a more smog free air. Fine dining, live music and other activities are right their with a wide range to chose from. And if you decide to just watch a movie and then to the bar, that's available too. It is more upscale and you will not see much panhandlers or homeless people.

There really is no neutral ground when it comes to Atlantic Station – it’s either all your American dreams made shiny, sparkly reality, or it’s a recurring nightmare in which you’re trapped in a maze of mall retail, chain restaurants and parking decks. For those of you in the latter category, I suggest skipping the labyrinth altogether and visiting instead for the top-notch entertainment the Station hosts (unfortunately, you won’t be able to avoid the parking deck - unless you take MARTA, which I always highly recommend). Cirque Du Soleil, Cavalia and other attractions make their Atlanta home here in enormous, flag-topped tents you can see from the interstate, and the exhibition center never fails to deliver (by popular demand, Dialogue in the Dark and Bodies just extended their run to May 2011).

If, however, you yearn to hang your hat in a trendy loft, luxury condo, townhome or “detached home” (an unfortunate phrase, but that’s directly off the website) a minute’s walk from more than one million square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment – including a 16-screen movie theater, a bowling alley and a museum – Atlantic Station is your dream come true. Shopping-wise, Dillard’s, Target, H&M, and Express are a few of the more popular offerings, not to mention the small town that is IKEA (my boyfriend and I went in once for wall shelves and couldn’t get out for over an hour and a half, prompting the poor guy – now delirious from the effects of the “one-way layout” – to exclaim “It’s like shopping in space!”). Restaurants range from popular mall and tourist trap fixtures like California Pizza Kitchen and Fox Sports Grill to quite good boutique-y haunts like Rosa Mexicano and Geisha House. There’s also pockets of pretty landscaping, fountain-studded lakes and cute, walkable streetscapes scattered about, and easy access to the many pleasures of Midtown (Atlanta’s Manhattan) and the main arteries in and out of the city.

Whether you love it or hate it, you do have to admit that when it comes to the whole “live/work/play,” mixed-use community thing, Atlantic Station is pretty freakin’ impressive. The whole development was built on what used to be the grounds of the defunct Atlantic Steel Mill, making it the largest “brownfield redevelopment” in the world. It’s also done an alright job of applying that green sense throughout its design, with refurbished steel presses from the mill making up some of the architecture and at least some treed, green spaces to help balance out all the towering stores and neon signage. Cheers!

Atlantic Station is truly a mixed bag. Developed in the early 2000's in a location just off (and around)17th Street, and to the west of Interstate I-285, it was touted as an up and coming mixed-income housing area in downtown Atlanta. It is close to Interstates I-75/I-85, MARTA public transit, and the amenities of downtown Atlanta. The 17th Street Bridge connect Atlanta Station to the rest of midtown Atlanta. Atlantic Station, a walkable shopping center lined with sidewalks, by the same name, is a convenient and wheelchair-accessible place to shop. It might also be the only place downtown where you can park for free (at least for the first hour)! Newly built high-rise office buildings, great stores like IKEA and Target, a huge movie theater, a high-rise community named “Twelve”, beautifully-designed new homes and town homes, and even a L'Arc de Triomphe-like monument in their midst, all made Atlantic Station the talk of this town when it was first completed. It was to be the best thing that ever happened to Atlanta neighborhood development. Unfortunately, in recent times a number of the residential properties have fallen into foreclosure, and reportedly crime has risen there - making it the 'talk of the town' for another reason! But the upside is that now it is even more affordable to buy in Atlanta Station, especially for singles who want access to its amenities and the Atlanta social scene, without the high Buckhead prices!