Buckhead Village SPI

The Buckhead community of Atlanta is a thriving business and residential district that forms one of the densest areas in the Atlanta region. Buckhead Village is the commercial core of the community that began as a quaint neighborhood-commercial node serving the adjacent neighborhoods. More recently, Buckhead Village has been known as Atlanta's nightspot with a multitude of bars, clubs, and restaurants.

Market + Main was hired to assist the Buckhead Community Improvement District (BCID) in completing the transformation of the Village into Atlanta's premier shopping, dining, and residential district. To aid in the re-creation of the Village, Market + Main created a new zoning district for the area that added new regulations to the district. The previous zoning district regulated uses, densities, and parking ratios. Regulations pertaining to urban design and streetscaping were needed to ensure the new district is built with a uniform set of standards.

The newly-created Buckhead Special Public Interest (SPI) district requires wide sidewalks on all streets and even more prominent sidewalks on Atlanta's grandest street -- Peachtree. All streets will have landscaped strips with street trees and landscaping. Supplemental zones were added to ensure that outdoor dining, outdoor vending, plazas, open spaces, residential stoops, entrances, or landscaping will be provided on all streets. In addition to new streetscape standards for all streets, new controls were put on the placement and number of parking spaces, driveways, and curb cuts.

The new Buckhead Village SPI district was broadly supported by commercial property owners, civic associations, and the City of Atlanta. The district was adopted in the summer of 2007 and already new development is underway in the district that will implement the new vision for Buckhead Village.