City says OliverMcMillan has permits to begin Buckhead Atlanta work; August start is latest report

OliverMcMillan reportedly has all the permits it needs from the city of Atlanta to begin construction at the Buckhead Atlanta and BuckheadView was told Wednesday that the latest report is that real work will begin on the site in August.

In response to a question Wednesday, city planner Karl Smith-Davids told BuckheadView that that all of the permits necessary to start construction at the Buckhead Atlanta have been issued by the city and had been issued for some time.

City planner Karl Smith-Davids is shown at a recent meeting of the SPI-9
Development Review Committee along with other committee members,
left to right, Sally Silver, Denise Starling and Bonnie Dean. 

Smith-Davids, who is the city’s planner assigned to both Special Public Interest districts 9 and 12 in Buckhead (SPI-9 and SPI-12) said he is not sure why OliverMcMillan had not yet begun work on the project, but it was not for lack of the city issuing the necessary permits.

Smith-Davids, who spoke to BuckheadView at the end of the SPI-12 Development Review Committee meeting, said he understood that the developer was working out some minor changes on the site plans, but that does not affect the permits that have been issued or the start-up of work on the project.

Smith-Davids is the person in the city’s Planning Department who is most directly involved with the approval of the development plans, zoning issues and permits for the Buckhead Atlanta development.

Denise Starling, executive director of Livable Atlanta and BATMA as well as a member of both the SPI-9 and SPI-12 Development Review Committees, told BuckheadView she had been told in a conversation with OliverMcMillan Development Director Hunter Richardson that work would begin at the site in August.

OliverMcMillan's Buckhead Atlanta Director of Development Hunter
Richardson is shown with the new model of the proposed development.

Both of those conversations on Wednesday afternoon confirm Richardson’s response last week to questions from BuckheadView regarding what was holding up construction work. Richardson at that time denied that rumors of problems with the financing for the development was holding up the start of construction.   

Richardson told BuckheadViewtoday that pre-construction activities are underway and OliverMcMillan is working “diligently to get Buckhead Atlanta back under construction.” He added that the project continues “to be on schedule for a late 2013/early 2014 opening."

"OliverMcMillan continues to work diligently to get Buckhead Atlanta back under construction,” Richardson’s emailed statement said last week. “Pre-construction activities are underway with the former Hi-Fi Buys building having been refurbished for its current use as Balfour Beatty's construction offices and Georgia Power in the process of under grounding the power lines on Buckhead Avenue. This effort is just weeks away from completion. Since much of this work is underground, it is not yet visible to the public. This work is part of the process of preparing to start construction.”

Asked why OliverMcMillan had not been back to the SPI-9 DRC since February with answers to some requested plan changes, Richardson’s statement said: “We continue to work with the DRC and the city of Atlanta to obtain the necessary approvals and permits to restart the development.  We already have SAP (Special Administrative Permit) and SDP (Site Development Plan) approvals for Parcels A and C and are in the process of obtaining the framing permits to commence construction. We continue to be on schedule for a late 2013/early 2014 opening."

Hunter Richardson at a Neighborhood
Planning Unit B meeting last September
is shown describing the different parcels
of the Buckhead Atlanta development. 

Richardson reported he has not been back to the DRC because, currently, he has the approvals needed to go to construction, and is focused on getting construction re-started.

On Wednesday afternoon, Smith-Davids said he expects OliverMcMillan to returns to the DRC sometime in the next few months.

Richardson had sent a response to a query from Starling as to whether OliverMcMillan would be at Wednesday’s SPI-9 DRC meeting, which stated: "We had not been planning on coming back to DRC in July as the next round of reviews by DRC are not needed for our next round of permits which are the framing permits. While we continue to work on open issues with City Planning on the Parcel B SAP, we have not yet nailed down the design/budget re the streetscape/landscape items proposed for Parcels A and C. Once finalized, we plan to return to DRC.”

Richardson explained in his memo to Starling: “Parcel B won't start construction until months after we start Parcels A & C and the streetscape work is a year out before it starts."