COLONY SQUARE - Atlanta, Georgia
Colony Square was built in 1968 during an era when American retail turned its back to the streets and retreated further indoors. At the intersection of two of Atlanta’s most prominent thoroughfares, Peachtree and 14th Streets, arguably the spiritual if not geographic center of the city, stand two 25-story fluted concrete towers that look more like correctional facilities than office buildings with retail at their bases. To access the mall, one descended an exterior stair between the two towers before getting lost in a warren of interior concourses. When the property changed ownership in the late aughts, the new owners wanted to “de-fortress” the mall and give it a more welcoming face to the street. The tower bases will be encased with glass and metal shrouds to disguise the heft of the concrete and to create the appearance of lightness. Then the mall ceiling will be removed. What were once interior concourses will become exterior plazas.
Our office has been engaged to figure out ways to retrofit a landscape scheme on top of and around these 50-year old buildings. Since the vast majority of the project is on top of a massive parking garage, the structural constraints required us to reconcile Atlanta streetscape guidelines, leasing arrangements for tenant outdoor spaces, and the overburden of the new design, all while trying to deliver an impactful experience.
Office: Site Solutions
Status: In Construction
Colony Square Project Management: Mike Lant and Nick Lombardo
Design Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle (Maxwell Pau)
Architect of Record: Lord Aeck Sargent
Irrigation: Bob Scott and Dustin Agnes
Landscape Principal in-Charge: David Floyd
Landscape Principal Designer: Kevin McCarthy
Landscape Project Management & Construction Management: John Merritt
Graphics Consultant: Huie Designs (Jacky Keough)
Branding Consultant: Imbibe (Lea Friedman)
General Contractor: Hoar Construction
This renovation is a collection of several projects on this same site across four phases of construction.
Because of this, describing it while avoiding confusion was extremely challenging.
Please refer to illustrative plan to understand how the pieces are in relationship to one another using the link at the bottom of this page.
For an overview video of the entire project, visit: Colony Square Reimagined
Valet Plaza
The Valet Plaza is the front door of this project. In its layout and design, we tried to incorporate shared streets principles as much as we could. Our goal was to create a plaza that looks like it was meant for people while it just so happens cars can drive there.
Atlanta's Midtown Alliance, an organization established long after the original Colony Square was built, has assembled guidelines for streetscape zones, sidewalk dimensions, hardscape elements and tree standards. Retrofitting these guidelines to the new Colony Square was not straightforward. The ramps to the parking deck interrupt the city sidewalk. This forced us to re-direct people into and around the Valet Plaza while still maintaining the proper clearances and dimensions to remain in compliance with the public sidewalk standards.
Car drivers kept parking right next to the building so we needed to figure out how to deter this without installing such unwelcoming devices as bollards and fences. Instead, we wanted to see if we could create a win-win situation where we have a protective barrier that does not at all look like a protective barrier, yet in fact, is a site amenity. So we built a deck. It eventually became known as the Loop Lounge, an outdoor living room in the middle of the plaza.
The Colonnade
The prior entrance to the mall concourse felt squeezed and back-of-house. In response, the architects tunnelled a loggia through the former building volume along the Southern edge, effectively widening, quite dramatically, the former entry corridor to the mall. The result became known as The Colonnade. Since this is the primary conduit to The Plaza, this loggia needed to be a grand entrance. The widening of this corridor allowed for the alluring volume of light emanating from The Colonnade at night, hopefully serving as a beacon to attract passers-by from Peachtree Street.
The Plaza
The primary open space, branded The Plaza, was made only possible by the removal of the mall roof. What was once an interior concourse became an outdoor plaza.
The grading challenges were many. The previous terrazzo floor of course was flat. The deflection of the supporting girders gave us an inconsistent and unpredictable depth for the new paving profile. The old concrete topping slab did not come off cleanly leaving a rough, pitted surface from which to start. And given the program we had to accommodate, we could not have new area drains all over the place with a wave of sloped planes for positive drainage. Furthermore, the new paving system had to be robust enough to withstand the forces of compression and torsion compliments of the maintenance vehicles.
Nowhere else in the project was coordination among team members so critical.
The Grove
Many buildings constructed in the States during the 1960s and 1970s turned their backs to the streets and away from the so-called ills of the city. In some instances the added step was taken to decorate the back of the building to look like the front. Our objective in capturing this lost, seemingly back-of-house space, soon to become known as The Grove, was to turn the buildings around. The architects re-designed the storefronts with a welcoming face to the street. Our office helped to transform this corner by designing several food and beverage zones, featuring a tiered deck with a grand stair that leads directly to The Plaza. The former lost space has now become a primary gateway into the site.
Corner Park
As of writing, the final building on campus -- Building 500 -- is still in progress. The upper floors will be occupied by a multi-national law firm. The bottom floor will house retail with restaurants occupying the curve that abuts a public park. Our initial charge was to design the interface between the building and the corner park. However, when the Midtown Alliance heard about the new construction, they put forward the idea of updating the entire park, not just the transition. The following images represent the beginning of our collaboration.
