Confidential to Sprudge readers, re: our news gathering methods. Sometimes we learn about schtuff from Facebook! And skulking there, on the mother of all social media apparati, we did discover some exciting news coming out of the City Too Busy To Hate.
Spotted via Jason Dominy’s Facebook:
We’re hiring for FT baristas for our new Ponce City Market Dancing Goats Coffee Bar in Atlanta! If you’re interested, let me know. Very beautiful new shop that will be busy and putting out great coffee and drinks!
This was the first we’d heard of this “Ponce City Market”, so forgive us the newbie exuberance, but the project sounds really incredible. As per their official website (which is a lot of fun), PCM is a large brick building in the heart of Atlanta, two million square feet on 16 acres and 14 stories at the highest point. The building was originally built in 1926, and for 65+ years it serves as the SE distribution center for Sears Roebuck, also housing a large Sears department store. The building was shuttered around 20 years ago and purchased by the city, who has now sold it to Jamestown, the development group behind such projects as New York’s Chelsea Market. Plans call for residential, commercial, and retail spaces in the renovated building, with an opening date sometime in 2014.
Here’s the PCM Flickr, and some cool construction videos from their Youtube. The folks at Eater Atlanta have it covered, and there’s all kindsa press links up on the official Ponce City Market website. But the most eloquent words we’ve found on the project come from Mike Ferguson, of Batdorf and Bronson’s Atlanta office. He shared this info with us, and we’re sharing it with you:
Ponce City Market is slated to open sometime in 2014. It is now a massive construction site and at peak will have 1000 construction workers a day.
Batdorf & Bronson was intrigued with the project from the beginning. We were looking for a second retail location in Atlanta but we’re quite picky. The Ponce City Market is not only a great location geographically, but the entire thing is one giant recycling and preservation project, which fits with our core values. After touring the site, we became the first retailer to sign a lease. Construction had yet to begin but we caught the vision for what the site would become.
In the southwest corner of the property is a small and relatively newer building that had once served as a Sears automobile service center, complete with service bays, gas islands, and office space. Jamestown decided to turn this space into their leasing offices and a community event center for the next two years during construction. They asked us if we would build-out a coffeehouse in the space as well. They set aside 1000 square feet inside for the coffeehouse and drew up plans to turn the old gas island area into another 1000 square feet of screened-in patio space, southern style.
It’s this semi-temporary project next to the bigger PCM for which Batdorf is hiring, and Mr. Ferguson went on to tell us that the new space will contain vintage lighting from the building’s original construction in 1924, along with walls made from reclaimed factory window panes and display fixtures from antique factory racks. All of which means this new B&B location is at the top of our must-visit list during our next stay in Atlanta.
