![]() And along with this beautiful grid of streets and the assembly of beautiful old buildings. And we arrived at the stadium and I said: Look I mean, if we would be in Europe, this would be definitely the heart of the city because everything is here you need. Olaf Kunkat: And I said to Jake: Look, let’s count the minutes it needs to walk over to the stadium - and it was just eight minutes. when he saw Atlanta’s new Mercedes Benz Stadium down the road. His company, Newport Holdings, was ready to expand to the United States, and Olaf remembers touring the South Downtown neighborhood. Susanna Capelouto: Bring in Olaf Kunkat, a real estate investor from Berlin. Olaf Kunkat: Jake Nawrocki put me to South Downtown and I immediately discovered the beauty of this former heart of the city. But who would buy 48 old buildings in need of major upgrades on like, eight city blocks? Susanna Capelouto: His idea is simple: Renovate all the old buildings and bring back stores and people. And I had a strong fascination with this idea in this neighborhood long ago. This is an area of Atlanta that I’ve been driving through and mapping and coming down here for years before. In fact, these windows here still have the letters that the original tenant in there - Bird’s shoe store - written on these giant windows. So, if you were to go inside this building - around the back, inside - you’d see all these original windows are still there. Jake Nawrocki: And while it’s not exactly appealing visually today, it’s actually a good thing in a lot of ways, because it really preserved the bricks and windows behind. He shows me how as we look at one of the buildings. And now, Jake Nawrocki wants to revive it. desegregation, white flight, the rise of the suburbs, and shopping malls had sapped the life out of South Downtown. And in the course of the 19th century, that entire area built right up. Then White House Street - now Peachtree Street Southwest - and you would see developing industries along the railroad to the North and to the West. If you took a look around that area, you would see stores along Broad. Tim Crimmins: It developed as a commercial district in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. This neighborhood was right next to the railroad station, says Tim Crimmins. Some of the facades behind the boarded-up storefronts date back to a time after the Civil War when Atlanta emerged from being burned to the ground. First, you have to understand the history of this part of Atlanta. Susanna Capelouto: There aren’t many people here now, but some German investors are working with Jake to change that. But it’s a great thing for us because it activates the street. Jake Nawrocki: They’re sort of taking the liberty of using this as a movie set from time to time. His company owns the empty building where a film crew is busy setting up for a shoot. Susanna Capelouto: I meet Jake Nawrocki on Broad Street. We’ve had tremendous interaction with the movie industry. Jake Nawrocki: Looks like they’re filming a movie here on Broad Street. and the perfect setting for a zombie movie. It’s an area littered with boarded-up buildings and sad empty streets. ![]() My name is Susanna Capelouto, and I want to take you to the oldest part of the city of Atlanta. THE BIG POND - Revitalizing Downtown Atlanta (PDF, 312 kB). ![]() The music “Banjo Basic Man” comes from Lobo Loco and is under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Before joining WABE in 2017, Susanna worked for CNN. In this podcast, Susanna talks to city planners, historians, investors, and residents of the Southside of Atlanta. Susanna is a senior editor at Atlanta’s NPR station WABE where she works with reporters covering everything from health to urban affairs. Listen to this episode: Apple Music | Spotify | Download ![]()
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