Memorial Drive was buzzing a decade ago as homebuyers picked up units located close to Downtown Atlanta and Midtown, but at prices that reflected the street’s gritty urban texture. These days, humming may be a better word to describe the pace of development. Another difference? Now there’s a bona fide effort to plan for the future of the corridor along a 5.5-mile stretch from I-75/85 to Candler Road. A group of Georgia Tech graduate students, working under the guidance of professor Mike Dobbins, are devising a framework plan for the Memorial Drive corridor. A handful of Tech students presented results of their first three weeks of work at a meeting late Monday afternoon at Drew Charter School’s Senior Academy. The finished product is due by the end of the year. Their plan would create a unified vision for an urban corridor that transitions from an industrial nature closer to the state Capitol to houses and mom-and-pop shops as the road makes a straight line toward Decatur and Stone Mountain.
