New Mercedes-Benz Headquarters: Not Your Average Office Park
A local developer hired an architecture firm ─ based out of Miami ─ to build out its property with a live-work-play theme.
The Sandy Springs development will include more than 1,000 housing units, 30 acres of greenspace and across the future headquarters for Mercedes-Benz.
But this isn’t your average suburban office park.
Michael Hadden is author of a blog called New Urban Roswell and is on the board of the Atlanta chapter for the Congress for the New Urbanism. You could say he’s … a little jealous.
“Man, I’d love to live right next to where I work,” Hadden said. “Not have to jump into the car all the time. Although it is, you know, Mercedes-Benz ─ a car company. The irony’s not escaping me there.”
More than a third of the 76 acres where the homes are being built will be greenspace ─ so think trees ─ lots of them. The rest of the property will be office space, stores and restaurants. Basically, following the current trend of mixed-use developments.
Tom Mahaffey, president of the Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce, says residents continue to demand walkable communities.
“The younger generation, as we call the millennials, likes to work and live close to where they play,” Mahaffey said. “They like to be able to walk. They like to be able to sit in the park and read and have a cup of coffee.”
DPZ, the Miami architecture firm that was hired for the project, is a leader in what’s still called “New” Urbanism. Some of its early work includes Florida’s Seaside and Rosemary Beach. And in metro Atlanta, Hadden says others are trying to follow the mixed-use philosophy like Riverwalk Village in Roswell and Avalon in Alpharetta.
But Hadden says his biggest critique of the new project in Sandy Springs is that it’s not close to public transit. A historic mansion, Glenridge Hall, was also demolished last week.
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