40 Years on, Decatur, Georgia, Takes a Fresh Look at Downtown
As the first comprehensive look at Downtown Decatur in more than 40 years, the Town Center 2.0 Plan takes stock of the current state of the downtown and the Metro Atlanta Region to create a new vision that carries downtown forward into its next phase of evolution.
The original Town Center Plan reimagined the Downtown Decatur of 1982 (left), home to a new MARTA station connecting the city to Downtown Atlanta via a 20-minute train ride. The Downtown Decatur of 2023 (right) has seen tremendous growth and infill, though some of the same issues identified in the 1982 plan persist to this day.
Addressing Persistent Issues and Imagining the Future
Located in the heart of DeKalb County, the City of Decatur is a vibrant community known throughout Metro Atlanta as a walkable island in an otherwise car-dominated region. Home to notable restaurants, three MARTA stations, and a charming small-town feel, by 2030 Decatur is projected to add 300 residents per year to its current population of 25,000 residents. Once a more affordable alternative to Atlanta’s intown neighborhoods, median home values are now twice that of the region. The city is a highly desirable place o live, and its growth is projected to continue. With momentum on its side and quality of life in mind, Downtown Decatur is best positioned to accommodate this growth and demand.
The Decatur Town Center Plan 2.0 is the first comprehensive look at downtown since the original 1982 Town Center Plan. Almost 40 years later, downtown retains the humanity and warmth described in the 1982 plan, supporting both an intimate small-town feel with the qualities and vibrancy of a dense urban community. However, the 1982 Town Center Plan recognized many issues that persist today. These include an over-reliance on surface parking lots and strip commercial uses that “break up traditional city blocks,” the “poorly used upper level of the MARTA plaza,” “undeveloped key corners,” confusion over parking regulations, and a lack of trees in downtown. The 1982 plan expressed a need for better urban form, more residential development, and a mix of uses downtown. That said, many improvements have been made since 1982. Key corners and surface parking lots have been developed, downtown has many more mixed-use buildings and there has been an influx of downtown residents.
The challenges faced by downtown today are familiar to those in 1982, yet the opportunities we envision reflect different values and priorities of the current Decatur community. In 1982 DeKalb County and the City of Decatur were not experiencing population growth, but that tide has long since turned. There are now close to 3,500 residents that call Downtown Decatur home and more neighbors on the way as additional mixed-use development is completed. The Town Center Plan 2.0 aims to carry forward the spirit of the goals and policies outlined in the original plan and continue to “preserve the best of the past while welcoming the future.”
To accomplish this work, the City of Decatur and the community worked together with a planning team made up of urban planners and landscape architects (MKSK), market analysts and strategists (Development Strategies), community engagement specialists (Hummingbird), historic resources professionals (Gray & Pape), and zoning code professionals (White & Smith).
The Decatur Town Center Plan 2.0 reflects the perspectives of more than 1,000 Decatur voices Over this 10-month planning process the community was engaged in through public meetings, online surveys, and presence at community events. Every step of the way, Decaturites were involved in the decision making for this plan.
Broad, Comprehensive Community Outreach
The Decatur Town Center Plan 2.0 Process engaged more than 1,000 Decaturites who shared their passion and love for downtown. Throughout the community engagement process, Decaturites described a walkable and vibrant downtown beloved by the community that surrounds its boundaries. Their vision for the future of downtown was overwhelmingly positive and beaming with opportunity - a greener, more walkable, and more livable district that is welcoming to all residents and visitors. The voices engaged through this process reflect the diversity of the community for which this plan is intended. The process, led by a team of City Staff and the planning team, convened the following groups, meetings, and platforms to craft the vision for downtown outlined in this document: A Steering Committee representing a broad spectrum of downtown residents, businesses, and organizations; 15 Stakeholder Focus Groups with multiple individual interviews and follow ups to engage with those most familiar with downtown; a dedicated project website with online activities including an online survey and an interactive map to better reach a wide range of Decaturites; presence at community festivals, events, board meetings, and neighborhood association gatherings; nontraditional engagement events, such as pop-ups, running club gatherings, walking tours, and “meetings in a box;” and Three Community Meetings, held at each of the three project phases, to have one-on-one conversations with Decaturites and share the plan’s progress and recommendations.
Through these multiple forms of in-person and online engagement, The City of Decatur, the community and the planning team worked together to create seven Goal statements that guided the creation of 23 Objectives and 34 Action Items. These Action Items will help move downtown forward and achieve the promise of the vision created by the community through this planning process. This Vision for Downtown concludes with conceptual plans for three Opportunity Sites that consider a future where the aspirations for this plan have been realized. All three sites represent mixed use and mixed income developments that have walkable spaces, ample open space, provide new retail amenities, and showcase sustainable infrastructure. Taken together, this plan provides a vision for the future of downtown that builds on the strong planning history of Decatur and sets out a roadmap for successful implementation.
Developed by the City of Decatur and validated by the community through the engagement process, the plan’s seven Project Goals became the organizing element for their subsequent strategies and action items.
Establishing a Common Vision with a 100-Day Action Plan
Implementing the Town Center 2.0 Plan will require cooperation among the City of Decatur, the community, and its partners. The City will need to work with property owners, businesses owners, developers, DeKalb County, MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission, and the Georgia Department of Transportation, etc. to make physical improvements to public spaces and streets and to shape the character of new mixed-use development. Policy recommendations and programs will involve the efforts of City staff, the City Commission, the Planning Commission, and other bodies such as the Downtown Development Authority, Tourism Bureau and Visitor’s Center, etc. This will also require additional community outreach and conversations. Given the ability of the City of Decatur to provide leadership in implementing the Town Center 2.0 Plan, there are several immediate priorities that the City should commit to in order to jump-start success in the first days following plan adoption, outlined in the plan as a 100-day Action Plan. These include beginning the process of updating the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), attracting a new hotel to downtown, advancing the transformation of Decatur Square, updating streetscape standards, enabling historic preservation tools, and creating a downtown ambassador program.
The 100-day Action Plan identifies six key implementation items that City of Decatur Staff, with the support from partners, began to tackle right after the plan’s unanimous adoption by City Council.
The Decatur Town Center Plan 2.0 was unanimously adopted by the Decatur City Commission in June 2023. You can view the final Plan here.