NHL open to another expansion franchise in Atlanta (Alpharetta, Dunwoody: transfer, buy)
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All you've done is derail a decent thread and wish for Atlanta's failure. It's time for you to leave, but you're too much of an attention ho to bow out gracefully....
All you've done is derail a decent thread and wish for Atlanta's failure. It's time for you to leave, but you're too much of an attention ho to bow out gracefully....
Atlanta had two valid chances to properly host an NHL team and both chances ended in both teams leaving for Calgary and Winnipeg, respectively! Not my fault that both teams couldn’t compete while they was there in Atlanta.
I don’t see how the proposal to Alpharetta is “decent”, considering it’s just too far away from the core city. If Atlanta can pull an NHL team from Arizona, fine, but I’m not sure if the casual fan will travel all the way to Alpharetta just to see an NHL game, let alone a visiting fan.
I can only wish you guys good luck in getting a third NHL team, even though I believe it will be a lot harder to obtain than the first two due to the unfortunate hockey history in Atlanta.
If Atlanta is highly averse to mass transit, then that's it's destiny! The lack of commuter rail in Metro Atlanta will be Metro Atlanta's downfall in not just attracting a pro ice hockey team, but in Metro Atlanta's viability as a major metro area and a major market. Just ask Detroit.
This is a night and day difference between Miami and Atlanta. Miami's mass transit network, while not perfect, is growing, especially with the recent opening of the Brightline between Orlando and Miami and it will ensure future robust growth between Miami as well as Orlando while Atlanta and GA have no high speed rail system as we speak.
Atlanta can continue to rely on expressways and highways, but all that is going to ensure failure, plus when just about every suburb is fully built out and established, it's going to be a lot tougher just to lay out a rail line due to the constant nimbyism. I'd like to see Atlanta adopt plans to construct a commuter rail system similar to Chicago and DC, but the conservativism is strangling Metro Atlanta.
Detroit might even be more likely to have a commuter rail line, to Ann Arbor via Dearborn before Atlanta does. The cancellation of the Clayton County line killed any chances of commuter rail to happen in this metro. However Detroit metro has it's challenges and like the Atlanta OTP suburbs, the neighboring suburban counties have the same mindset of NIMBY-ism and not wanting "those people" from the city of Detroit to bring crime to their peaceful suburbs, so they voted against it. For the sake of this thread, at least it has a decent hockey team. In fact it's my favorite team followed by Seattle's new franchise, the Kraken.
The Brightline is what made Florida look more like Japan. Like every city with good mass transit, including LA is just like Tokyo with low crime rates because everyone is happy, polite, respectful, and friendly; while Atlanta is the road rage capitol of the whole world.
I don’t see how the proposal to Alpharetta is “decent”, considering it’s just too far away from the core city. If Atlanta can pull an NHL team from Arizona, fine, but I’m not sure if the casual fan will travel all the way to Alpharetta just to see an NHL game, let alone a visiting fan.
And trust me, as someone from that area, that would be an intentional thing. They don't want anyone who lives south of the gold dome to ever come up to North Fulton and Forsyth. They'll purposely make it difficult to get there via any way other than driving in a long traffic jam, and they'll make the tickets expensive, too.
The idea of putting an arena in South Forsyth is not by accident- that's the geographic center of the khakis-wearing crowd that they would want to be fans and buy the tickets and come to the games, and walk around a little bit in their sterile, fake-urban mixed-use development with thousands of parking spaces.
They'd want it to be a team for Forsyth, Cherokee, East Cobb, North Fulton, and West Gwinnett. And Dunwoody/Brookhaven. You know, all the nice areas.
That much makes sense and all on paper, but I just don't like that that's the reality. I wish ATL would embrace and develop its downtown, and mass transit/ a regional rail system and culture. Especially for a city that was originally built as a railroad town, and surrounded by small historic railroad towns along the lines.
Atlanta had two valid chances to properly host an NHL team and both chances ended in both teams leaving for Calgary and Winnipeg, respectively! Not my fault that both teams couldn’t compete while they was there in Atlanta.
While the Flames left Atlanta because of the glaring lack of much-needed revenue-generation component in the form of luxury box suites for corporate sponsors at the erstwhile Omni Coliseum, which was built without luxury box suites right before NBA and NHL arenas started being built with luxury box suites, the Thrashers did experience some success on the ice (even going so far as to win a division title in 2007) but were ultimately done in by exceptional internal dysfunction and infighting within one of the worst ever ownership groups in the history of professional sports in the erstwhile Atlanta Spirit LLC ownership group.
The exceptional internal dysfunction and infighting within that group (which at the time owned both the Atlanta Thrashers and the Atlanta Hawks) seems to be a major reason (but far from the only reason) why having both the Atlanta Hawks and an Atlanta area NHL team share State Farm Arena no longer seems to be a viable option.
The historically severe infighting and dysfunction of that past Atlanta Spirit LLC Hawks and Thrashers ownership group very understandably seems to have left a pretty bad taste in the mouth of current Atlanta Hawks ownership to ever again want to share State Farm Arena with an NHL team… Not to mention that a potential future Atlanta area NHL franchise very likely (if not most likely) will want to play its home games in a hockey-specific arena attached to a robust revenue-generating large mixed-use entertainment complex located directly in the middle of the geographical footprint of its likely largest fervent fanbase in Atlanta’s highly affluent northern suburbs and exurbs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer34
I don’t see how the proposal to Alpharetta is “decent”, considering it’s just too far away from the core city. If Atlanta can pull an NHL team from Arizona, fine, but I’m not sure if the casual fan will travel all the way to Alpharetta just to see an NHL game, let alone a visiting fan.
Many (if not most, though definitely not all) of the casual hockey fans in the Atlanta metropolitan area are most likely to be located north of Interstate 20, where most of Atlanta’s metropolitan and regional population lives… With the highest concentration of hockey supporters appearing to reside in the part of Atlanta’s Northern Crescent suburbs and exurbs that are located just south of, at and north of the Top End of the I-285 Perimeter highway between Interstates 75 Northwest and 85 Northeast.
In a diffuse and extremely Northside-heavy large major metropolitan area/region like Atlanta, the northern suburbs and exurbs (which are now largely led by a decidedly suburban activity hub like Alpharetta, which over the last decade has emerged as a stratospheric economic juggernaut) are as much of a focal point of social, cultural and economic activity in the Atlanta metropolitan area/region as the core city (City of Atlanta proper).
Along with dominating the Atlanta metropolitan area demographically, Atlanta’s northern suburbs and exurbs tend to often dominate the Atlanta metropolitan area socially, culturally, politically and even economically.
So with Atlanta’s northern suburbs and exurbs being such a dominant factor in so many important facets of Atlanta metropolitan life, attracting hockey fans from the core city (the City of Atlanta proper, which only has about 8% of the total population of the entire Atlanta metropolitan area) is not going to be anywhere near as much of a priority for a potential future Atlanta area NHL franchise (and its very Northside-focused investors and future ownership) as attracting hockey fans from Atlanta’s highly affluent greater Northern Crescent suburbs and exurbs will be.
Very much like the numerous hockey fans living in and throughout metro Atlanta’s greater Northern Crescent that will be most marketed to and targeted for patronization by a potential future Atlanta area NHL franchise, casual fans living outside of Atlanta’s Northern Crescent who want to attend a hockey game in Alpharetta/South Forsyth County will have to drive/carpool or hire a vehicle (rideshare or private car service) if they want to get to games.
Meanwhile, visiting fans most likely either will have to rent a vehicle to drive or hire a vehicle service to get to hockey games in Alpharetta/South Forsyth County.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer34
I can only wish you guys good luck in getting a third NHL team, even though I believe it will be a lot harder to obtain than the first two due to the unfortunate hockey history in Atlanta.
The seemingly very robust revenue-generating large-scale mixed-use entertainment complex component of the Alpharetta/South Forsyth County site proposal seems to give the Atlanta area a significantly better chance of getting a third NHL franchise than many understandably may think.
That’s because the Atlanta Braves have demonstrated (and are continuing to demonstrate) that having a very robust revenue-generating large-scale mixed-use entertainment complex component that appeals heavily to affluent suburbanites and exurbanites can be a financial success, including in a large major Sun Belt metropolitan region like Atlanta.
The very robust revenue-generation that the Braves have experienced with their Battery mixed-use entertainment complex has been so successful that numerous other organizations and groups across major league professional sports (including the groups of suburban North metro Atlanta investors attempting to attract an NHL team back to the Atlanta market) now seem to be attempting to emulate the Braves highly profitable approach.
So the proposal to place a robust revenue-generating hockey-specific arena anchored large mixed-use entertainment complex in an area dominated by high-paying tech jobs and households with $100k median households in Alpharetta/South Forsyth County probably should not be taken lightly on onlookers and outside observers.
I, as a Philadelphia sports fan, have never liked the Falcons, solely because of the fans, and especially, the Braves, but I respected the fact that Atlanta was able to keep all three sports team in Atlanta. When the Thrashers came to Atlanta, that made it four, but I always had the feeling that the Thrashers wouldn't make it, and they no longer exist. Summerhill could've been Atlanta's version of Fenway, Wrigleyville, and Camden Yards, but the Braves and the regional leaders didn't see a need to stay in the city of Atlanta, and Truist Park in Cumberland is the result!
Since I've tried to vouch for MARTA to extend to Cumberland, I forget that I'm in GA, in which outside of Atlanta, is not interested in any mass transit project, and not in FL, which has done everything to increase mass transit projects throughout the state. I also fail to see how metro Atlanta can continue to be the largest metro in the Southeast when it doesn't have a decent commuter rail system.
The Atlanta metro extends to almost two hours into AL, and Athens, which is too far away, and only accessible by car. My issue isn't with Atlanta's growth, but how very spread out it is, almost like LA, and even LA now has an expanding mass transit system while Atlanta is nothing but freeways and highways outside of Atlanta.
And trust me, as someone from that area, that would be an intentional thing. They don't want anyone who lives south of the gold dome to ever come up to North Fulton and Forsyth. They'll purposely make it difficult to get there via any way other than driving in a long traffic jam, and they'll make the tickets expensive, too.
The idea of putting an arena in South Forsyth is not by accident- that's the geographic center of the khakis-wearing crowd that they would want to be fans and buy the tickets and come to the games, and walk around a little bit in their sterile, fake-urban mixed-use development with thousands of parking spaces.
They'd want it to be a team for Forsyth, Cherokee, East Cobb, North Fulton, and West Gwinnett. And Dunwoody/Brookhaven. You know, all the nice areas.
That much makes sense and all on paper, but I just don't like that that's the reality. I wish ATL would embrace and develop its downtown, and mass transit/ a regional rail system and culture. Especially for a city that was originally built as a railroad town, and surrounded by small historic railroad towns along the lines.
Downtown Atlanta is not at all hurting for the loss of the Braves and/or a potential future Atlanta area NHL franchise to Atlanta’s domineering northern suburbs and exurbs.
With the area already being the home to such major points of interest as the Mercedes-Benz Stadium (home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United), State Farm Arena (home of the Atlanta Hawks), Centennial Olympic Park, a robust museum district (that includes the one of the world’s largest aquariums and the College Football Hall-of-Fame), the Georgia World Congress Center (one of the world’s largest and busiest convention centers) and the very fast growing Georgia State University campus, and with the area slated to experience some major future redevelopments (including the proposed massive Centennial Yards redevelopment of South Downtown and a potential eventual multimodal transportation hub), Downtown Atlanta appears to have an extremely strong foundation to build on while building towards a very bright future.
It won’t happen overnight, but Downtown Atlanta very much appears to be heading in a very positive direction over the long run and not having a couple of major league sports franchises with suburban and exurban dominated fanbases likely isn’t going to hurt the prospects of Downtown Atlanta’s seemingly very bright future.
Heck, South Downtown and Summerhill seems to be experiencing success because of the absence of the Atlanta Braves who appeared to have possibly been been holding the area back while they were playing their home games at the erstwhile Turner Field (now Center Parc Credit Union Stadium and the home field for Georgia State University football games).
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 10-01-2023 at 10:44 PM..
If they were smart, the various powers that be would get together, and they'd combine business/big mixed use real estate development interests/economic growth (the things that Metro ATL does know how to do), all in one package with the mass transit expansion, along with the infrastructure need to move tons of people to sports games and big events and such. Especially given the heavy rail mass transit backbone that they already have in place, but refuse to expand. And even more especially since MARTA is getting those nice new trains soon, which is going to be like a nice modern refresh of the system.
MARTA's Green Line is currently a next to useless stub right now, but could be the best. And without even bringing it OTP.
First, extend the Green Line trains to the full length 4 cars (this is planned), and then extend it to run all the way to Avondale along with the Blue Line (I believe this is planned as well). Then the line would serve the excellent, walkable downtown Decatur station, as well as have park & ride at Avondale for people heading west on that line.
Then somebody does a big Hulsey Yard mixed use development, with an infill Krog St/Cabbagetown station built with it, on the Green and Blue lines. Right on the Beltline, directly integrated with it. Walking distance to Krog St market and all that. Also platform-integrated with a Beltline light rail line, which would run up to Ponce Market and all around the Beltline.
Then you do the whole redevelop of the interior and exterior of the Five Points central hub transfer station, with of course the line connecting there coming straight from the airport, and Midtown/Buckhead/Perimeter. Invest add more density, towers, and stuff right around there. Add a new Amtrak and potential future regional/commuter train hub in the Gulch area, connected both to that station and the station to the west (the one with the long confusing name- I would rename it to Centennial Olympic Park station.) And of course the big gulch master plan of all the towers to be built to be on top of it all.
The State Farm Arena right there, would be home to the NBA Atlanta Hawks, and a new franchise version of the NHL Atlanta Thrashers, and Mercedes Benz stadium also right there, home to the NFL Atlanta Falcons, and MLS Atlanta United. Could be 4 major pro teams all directly connected to the MARTA system (which is very nicely connected to the world's busiest airport), Amtrak national network via a new Atlanta station, and the suburbs and other regional towns via commuter rail lines to there, etc. An historic grand central union station type area. Perfect location for those teams to play.
Then you redevelop and revamp and rename what's currently the far underused Bankhead station on the Green line, to something invoking the Westside Park and Proctor Creek trail right there (and the Beltline as well), and new TOD mixed used developments along with it.
Then all you have to do is just add 2 more stations to that line, with one of them being within the city. Just run the Green Line above ground/aerially, out to the Moore's Mill/Bolton area, and put a station there, connected to all the new development going on there. Finally really connecting that part of NW Atlanta to the rest of the city. Plus nice river trails could be connected to that, as well. And then just run the line elevated along that CSX railroad line (which is owned by the state, btw)- elevated high above Vinings (or maybe in a cut and cover shallow tunnel) so as to minimally disturb them.
Run it underneath Cumberland Mall, to a final station on the other side of the mall, ITP at 41, next to the existing pedestrian bridge to the Galleria (and other pedestrian bridge from there over to the Battery/Truist Park), and build a bunch of new tower developments with it, both at the mall and the Galleria and the Battery, and just... all built up, there. As well as a nice transfer point for Cobb's bus system, and BRT up the 41 corridor.
That would connect the MLB Atlanta Braves, to the same system as the rest of the teams and city. But people could also still drive there, if they want to. There'd still be the same amount of parking as there is now, or actually probably more. But the point is that you wouldn't have to rely on one mode of (space inefficient) transportation, for getting everyone in and out of that Cumberland area.
All just seems like common sense to me, win-win's all for everyone's interests around there. But, whatever. All hail the automobile, I guess.
I think it would be cool for a new NHL team in the north Atlanta suburbs, but I think it's a big mistake and missed opportunity. So is not extending the MARTA line to Cumberland, regardless of whether Cobb fully joins MARTA or not. Just draw up a contract with MARTA for that one station, for transfer purposes. Then MARTA heavy rail would at least serve the NW ITP area. It doesn't need to go further than that, especially if there are commuter rail lines serving the rest of Cobb.
I, as a Philadelphia sports fan, have never liked the Falcons, solely because of the fans, and especially, the Braves, but I respected the fact that Atlanta was able to keep all three sports team in Atlanta. When the Thrashers came to Atlanta, that made it four, but I always had the feeling that the Thrashers wouldn't make it, and they no longer exist. Summerhill could've been Atlanta's version of Fenway, Wrigleyville, and Camden Yards, but the Braves and the regional leaders didn't see a need to stay in the city of Atlanta, and Truist Park in Cumberland is the result!
The Braves left Turner Field, Summerhill and the City of Atlanta proper because the Braves wanted complete control of any and all future mixed-use development that would be built in and around the Turner Field area.
Atlanta city government did not want to give the Braves complete control of any and all future mixed-use development that would be built in and around the Turner Field area because Summerhill neighborhood leaders objected to the Braves having complete control of development in the area on the grounds that such a setup potentially would harm the overall organic future redevelopment and growth of the area… Not unlike how many think that the presence of the Braves had harmed the Summerhill area during the roughly five decades that the team had been at Turner Field and the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium before it.
Another factor that appeared to play heavily in the Braves’ move from the City of Atlanta proper to Cobb County was that the City of Atlanta (at the strong urging and insistence of Georgia state government leaders) had prioritized funding a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons and a major renovation of State Farm Arena for the Atlanta Hawks over stadium improvements and/or upgrades for the Braves because of the critical importance of the Falcons, the Hawks and their home sporting facilities to the Georgia state-owned Georgia World Congress Center convention complex and the huge convention and tourism industry in Downtown Atlanta.
Because the Falcons and the Hawks played in sporting facilities that were directly tied to the continued viability of the convention and tourism industry in Downtown Atlanta, the Falcons’ and Hawks’ stadium deals were going to be prioritized over a stadium deal for the Braves who played in Summerhill and were facing obstacles (in the form of the aforementioned objections from Summerhill neighborhood leaders) to getting the type of controlled mixed-use development deal that the Braves wanted and needed to be financially successful in the aftermath of a horrific television deal imposed on them by their previous ownership.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer34
Since I've tried to vouch for MARTA to extend to Cumberland, I forget that I'm in GA, in which outside of Atlanta, is not interested in any mass transit project, and not in FL, which has done everything to increase mass transit projects throughout the state. I also fail to see how metro Atlanta can continue to be the largest metro in the Southeast when it doesn't have a decent commuter rail system.
Metro Atlanta can continue to be the largest metropolitan area in the Southeast because it is located in a region of the country in the Southeast where transit (including rail transit) generally is not recognized as being socially, culturally, politically and economically important.
Heck, not only is transit not viewed by many residents of this part of the Southeast as being important but many residents of this part of the Southeastern region (including much/most of the greater metro Atlanta/North Georgia region outside of I-285) feel actively threatened by transit and/or don’t consider transit to be a legitimate mode of transportation in a wholly automobile-centric region and culture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer34
The Atlanta metro extends to almost two hours into AL, and Athens, which is too far away, and only accessible by car. My issue isn't with Atlanta's growth, but how very spread out it is, almost like LA, and even LA now has an expanding mass transit system while Atlanta is nothing but freeways and highways outside of Atlanta.
Atlanta has many detractors for its very low-density, very spread out, extremely sprawling metropolitan and regional development pattern.
But a major reason why Atlanta is very spread out is because of its location in an area of heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly creek-and-valley terrain in a part of the continent where the Piedmont Plateau transitions into the Southern Appalachian foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The heavily wooded rolling-to-hilly creek-and-valley terrain has fostered much lower density metropolitan and regional development patterns than even many other notably sprawling Sun Belt metros (including Southern California, Phoenix and the big Texas metros).
And, of course, aside from a seemingly very modest amount of local and express bus service, there is very little transit apparatus located outside of the I-285 Perimeter because of the aforementioned very low-density sprawling metropolitan and regional development pattern and because of a widespread social and cultural lack of an appetite for transit much of metro Atlanta and North Georgia outside of I-285.
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