Midtown’s mysterious new roundabout followed a road of private, secret plans

The mysterious appearance of a new roundabout and exit on a state highway ramp in Atlanta’s bustling Midtown sparked concern early last year from neighbors who wondered why Georgia transportation officials would build such a thing without public input. The truth turned out to be much stranger.

Despite remaking public roadways, the roundabout on the Buford Spring Connector at Peachtree Street was privately funded and built by Dewberry Capital Corporation, one of the area’s most controversial developers, to serve its famously slow-paced and largely undisclosed plan for redeveloping area properties into something called “Uptown.” The project used a Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) private permit process that required no public meetings – and many major stakeholders were indeed in the dark until construction began and concerns were voiced.

“The fact that we had no knowledge of the plan until we saw the bulldozers is most upsetting,” said Paul Dimmick, president of the Ansley Park Civic Association (APCA), one of the local organizations that raised concerns. “Because there was no public vetting of the project, the impact of changing traffic patterns on secondary roads was given only a cursory review. Our primary concern is that the result will pour more congestion onto our residential streets, which are not designed to handle through traffic.”

Behind-the-scenes political battles appear to have ensued, including state legislators filing a bill that would require public input into such projects in the future. GDOT has yet to approve the nearly complete roundabout, with some residents saying they understand the Atlanta Department of Transportation (ATLDOT) and District 6 Atlanta City Councilmember Alex Wan have concerns about how the new ramp ties into a public street called Inwood Circle.

Dewberry did not respond to SaportaReport questions emailed to company founder and CEO John Dewberry and followed up in a voicemail message. Neither did some other key players, including ATLDOT, Wan, the Midtown Alliance and project contractor North Georgia Concrete of Fayetteville.

GDOT said this week that “the city street tie to Inwood Circle” –dubbed Inwood Connector on some documents — is among “various close-out items that need to be addressed” before the agency will approve the project and release a $300,000 bond. GDOT also acknowledged that the project’s new traffic may require changes to another Peachtree intersection.

Dewberry was able to privately build the roundabout under a “special encroachment permit,” which GDOT can issue to private entities that want to make changes on state roadways. The examples provided by GDOT included such changes as intersections and driveways for new residential subdivisions, shopping centers, distribution centers, and banks. But Dewberry appears to have no such development underway or imminent at the roundabout, which instead was justified in an internal traffic study as providing access to several, mostly speculative and conceptual future projects – most of them Dewberry’s.

GDOT says it also expects developer coordination with local government as part of the special encroachment permit process. In this case, GDOT’s approval appears to have relied on a brief recommendation letter dating to 2015 from the chief operating officer for then-Mayor Kasim Reed, who had no background in transportation and apparently included no studies or data. The letter did not mention the Midtown Alliance’s publicly created “Blueprint Midtown” master plan, which contains no such project. ATLDOT was created around the time GDOT approved the roundabout but apparently was not involved in its planning, with internal meeting minutes showing the idea of making the City the permit applicant – which would have triggered public hearings – was explicitly rejected by planners. Contractors reportedly “coordinated” with ATLDOT on construction after the permit approval, according to GDOT documents.

GDOT responded to questions largely by describing general processes and how it could approve the project rather than why it did, given the project’s apparently unusual purpose and scale.

“The private developer was willing to build the public road at their expense, and the City supported the roadway construction,” said GDOT spokesperson Natalie Dale. “Therefore, GDOT agreed and approved the permit. Land use and permitting for development is a function of local governments.”

Two residents of Inwood Circle – Duffy Hayes and Linda Vanacore – say that the roundabout, rather than serving a new development, is instead part of Dewberry’s high-pressure tactics to buy them out of their condo complex. Dewberry’s project filing with GDOT shows the company as owning the Winston Churchill Condominiums at Inwood and West Peachtree Street. In fact, Dewberry has only bought most of the condos – and controls a condo association board populated with its employees – while Hayes and Vanacore are among holdouts who still own units.

Hayes calls the roundabout plan an attempt to “hijack” Inwood and apparently reconfigure it from a circle into a straight-shot road to West Peachtree dubbed Inwood Drive, with the other end turned into a cul-de-sac – all well beyond the state right of way. The GDOT project filing shows the area as part of a future Dewberry development called Uptown Heights. Hayes says he and Vanacore heard rumors years ago about Dewberry wanting a highway ramp on their street but could not get solid information and assumed GDOT would conduct public hearings on such a plan.

“We always knew that they had aspirations …,” says Hayes. “But this GDOT thing is just – I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s kind of mind-blowing to me. … So when this popped out of the blue, it really caught us off-guard because we expected such a long runway if this was going to happen….”

Hayes and Vanacore say Wan’s chief of staff, Lance Orchid, visited the site earlier this year and later told them the office agreed with ATLDOT’s concerns that the roundabout’s connection to Inwood Circle did not match the plans filed with GDOT. They said Orchid told them the office would send a letter to GDOT supporting a review and reconstruction of the connection.

GDOT says some stakeholder meetings were held in the spring of 2021, and project filing documents indicate that the Midtown Alliance was contacted during the planning stage. But many local organizations were apparently unaware until meetings in early 2022, after the construction started, after questioning emails from Georgia Rep. Stacey Evans (D-Atlanta.)

Dimmick, at the APCA, said meetings since then also have included representatives of GDOT, ATLDOT, the Sherwood Forest Civic Association, WSB-TV, The Temple, and the offices of Evans and Wan. Most of those did not respond to questions, except The Temple, which declined comment. Also not responding was the Savannah College of Art and Design, whose Atlanta campus is in the area and includes a facility at West Peachtree and Inwood.

Some other major institutions nearby say they had no input. That includes the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, whose president and CEO, Mark C. McDonald, lives in Ansley Park. He said he was not aware of the roundabout until it opened and objects to it because he thinks it increases traffic dangers. “I was surprised that the state would allow another intersection that comes into an interstate ramp because that enters a new traffic conflict into a high-speed ramp,” he said.

“I am very concerned about being in the dark on this,” said Rev. Dr. Jarrod Longbons, senior minister at Peachtree Christian Church, another major Peachtree Street institution, about the roundabout and Dewberry’s larger development plans.

Dimmick says one topic of the recent stakeholder meetings has been the traffic impact on the already tricky intersection of Peachtree, West Peachtree and Beverly Street. He said GDOT has proposed various solutions there that have yet to be accepted or studied.

“From Ansley Park’s perspective, the Dewberry roundabout issue is far from resolved,” he said. “Once a course of action is agreed upon [on other traffic planning], it will be interesting to see if the Dewberry organization voluntarily recognizes their responsibility or whether the taxpayers will get stuck with the bill.”

GDOT says the $300,000 bond on the project is the maximum it could impose and is intended to pay for any issues found in an inspection that is continuing.

“This permit work is not complete,” said Dale, the GDOT spokesperson. “The bond will not be released until the permit is closed… There are various close-out items that need to be addressed, including final utility work, minor landscaping, fencing, and the city street tie to Inwood Circle.”

Uptown plans

Founded in 1989 by former Georgia Tech football quarterback John Dewberry, Dewberry Capital (and such related entities as Dewberry Group) is now a billion-dollar company based in One Peachtree Pointe, a mixed-use complex it built at Peachtree and West Peachtree. Dewberry is famous – or in some controversial cases, infamous – for a slow-paced approach to redevelopment. That can involve letting a project sit half-finished, as with a Virginia hotel, or tearing old structures down and leaving vacant lots until the time is right. The latter tactic got John Dewberry dubbed “Atlanta’s emperor of empty lots” in a 2017 Bloomberg Businessweek story that focused on his 20-year-old plan to redevelop and rebrand northern Midtown, near the Buckhead border, as Uptown.

Few details are known about the Uptown plan aside from the properties Dewberry is publicly registered as owning and news reports of such individual project names as Uptown Heights, Uptown Square and Uptown Rhodes Tower.

The roundabout paperwork filed with GDOT includes more details of those concepts, as handling their traffic is a major rationale. The new Inwood Circle ramp feeds directly into the area pegged as Uptown Heights. The initial version of the plan also included another ramp on the other side of the roundabout, dubbed Peach Circle, that would have looped behind The Peach apartments and a Motel 6 to connect with Peachtree Street – an area dubbed Uptown Square, where Dewberry owns a vacant lot that ended up being used for roundabout construction staging.

Among the project concepts outlined in an internal traffic study for the roundabout dating to 2017 were:

Along with a SCAD dorm project and another private developer’s project at Peachtree and 17th Street – both of which have since been built or begun – all of those sites were projected to create 45,657 daily new vehicle trips on area streets north of 16th Street.

Two of Dewberry’s sites have involved historic preservation controversies. Earlier this year, Dewberry demolished a historic hotel on 17th Street that may have been used by “Gone With the Wind” author Margaret Mitchell, adding another vacant parcel to the collection there. The Rhodes Tower proposal includes the current site of the historic Rhodes Center South shopping center, next to the Georgia Trust’s headquarters in Rhodes Hall. The Georgia Trust once put the shopping center on its “Places in Peril” list of endangered historic sites. McDonald says Dewberry has privately shown him the Rhodes Tower plans. He declined to describe its details but said he is “very concerned about its impact on historic buildings and our own headquarters and Rhodes Hall.”

A map of Dewberry’s proposed development sites in the GDOT roundabout filing includes several properties the company does not own fully or at all, such as the Inwood Circle condos. Another is a MARTA parking lot along Inwood, where the Red and Gold rail lines go underground and where the transit agency years ago proposed a new station. A plan for the roundabout in the filing also shows Dewberry as owning part of that parking lot.

However, MARTA says it has not sold any of that property to Dewberry. MARTA also has no redevelopment plans of its own and has not had discussions with Dewberry about any, according to transit agency spokesperson Stephanie Fisher. She added that MARTA has no concerns with the roundabout because the location is outside its “usage area.”

Roundabout planning

According to the GDOT filing, Dewberry began studying traffic and potential improvements in 2014, then focused on the Buford Spring Connector ramp in 2016, when more detailed planning began, including the 2017 traffic study.

Unexplained by that timeline is how Dewberry was able to secure a support letter for the roundabout in 2015 from then-Atlanta Chief Operating Officer Daniel L. Gordon. Dated Sept. 10 and addressed to GDOT Commissioner Russell R. McMurry, the letter broadly describes the traffic and safety benefits of roundabouts in general while saying this particular one would be “using specifications outlined by the City of Atlanta,” which were not described. He said that the project “will be turned over to the City of Atlanta upon completion.”

“We are excited to partner with Dewberry Capital on this project near the intersection of Peachtree Street and the Buford/Spring Connector,” wrote Gordon. “The connector is an ideal location to create better access to this corridor and should promote economic development in the area… It is with these compelling elements in mind that the City of Atlanta looks forward to partnering with Dewberry Capital to create a pedestrian-friendly, traffic calming measure that will also cultivate and promote economic development for a deserving area of our city.”

Gordon, who now leads an Atlanta consulting firm, did not respond to questions about the letter.

By the time Dewberry was beginning the permit process in 2019, the City was about to debut ATLDOT, its first-ever transportation department, but there was no sign of seeking a new opinion from that agency. Minutes from a May 2019 internal planning meeting with GDOT and the project team show a discussion about using the City as the permit applicant, which among other things would avoid the need for securing a bond. “Discussion about City of Atlanta involvement related to applicant and right of way,” say the minutes. “Conclusion was to not involve COA [City of Atlanta] if at all possible and general consensus was COA does not need to be involved.”

GDOT says the project ended up needing to coordinate some construction work with ATLDOT. While the 2015 letter referred to the roundabout being “turned over” to the City, GDOT says it will be part of the state route system, with the piece connecting Inwood Circle to the ramp becoming City right of way.

The traffic study said the reason for the project was that “access to planned developments and property is desired from the entrance and exit ramps,” as well as to “underutilized areas of the northern Midtown area.” It also would improve Peachtree traffic, the study claimed, by diverting vehicles.

A big mid-stream change in the plan, unexplained in the available documents, was the removal of the “Peach Circle” ramp and road. The documents show GDOT officials asking for some post-change items that were not immediately available, including updated traffic diagrams and more details on an apparent projected back-up of traffic into the roundabout under certain conditions.

The lack of automatic public input was another internal discussion item. Meeting minutes show a GDOT staff member asking “if there is any public controversy” about the project. “The team is not aware of any controversy,” said the minutes. GDOT recommended a “public information meeting” be coordinated through the Midtown Alliance and made that an “action item” for the project engineers. It is unclear whether that happened, though it may be what GDOT refers to as a spring 2021 stakeholder meeting.

Regardless, many affected neighbors remained unaware of the project and its private origin into early 2022. According to emails obtained by SaportaReport, that’s when Evans began contacting GDOT with concerns and questions that remain unanswered, such as what the project cost Dewberry and GDOT in staff time. (GDOT says it doesn’t know either number.) GDOT responded by organizing more meetings with more stakeholders.

In February 2023, Evans filed House Bill 608, which would add private projects to the type of GDOT work that is subject to public hearing requirements. Her co-sponsors include Rep. Mesha Mainor (R-Atlanta) and Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), who is also a former GDOT commissioner. Mainor said she and Evans got GDOT engaged with more meetings because “the community members were frustrated with communication.” Mainor said that she and Evans “agreed that legislation was needed as a proactive approach to help with constituent concerns and legislator/GDOT collaborative efforts.”

A 2019 project filing is available on a GDOT website, though finding it requires knowing the project number 0016894.

Condo concerns

At the Winston Churchill condos, Hayes and Vanacore say the roundabout is just the latest unannounced surprise, following Dewberry’s purchase and demolition of two adjacent commercial buildings for the ramp and its slow acquisition of 21 of the 26 units since 2005, according to information the company provided in one of its sales proposals to them.

Condo association filings with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office show its current officers at the time were all Dewberry executives or attorneys, and the association has been based at Dewberry’s Peachtree Pointe address since 2014. Hayes and Vanacore have lived in one unit for over 20 years and bought a second one as an investment in 2006. They say they have two young children and don’t want to move.

Hayes and Vanacore say that several condos are vacant or lack utilities and that maintenance is generally poor. They say they are consulting lawyers about the question of fiduciary responsibility by a condo association.

“In the simplest terms, they’re supposed to be looking out in the best interest of the condominium owners as a whole, when in fact they’ve been operating it in the best interest of the company and where they want to go,” says Hayes.

He said Dewberry has repeatedly tried to buy out the couple, including with two high-pressure written offers he provided to SaportaReport. One offer from a Dewberry executive dates to August 2019, when the roundabout planning was in earnest. The offer gave the couple just over two weeks to sell while noting that Dewberry controlled the condo association and had “created a master redevelopment plan for some of its Midtown properties, including those that are adjacent to the condominium. Dewberry Group is intent on seeing the plan realized.”

Another offer from a Dewberry lawyer in 2021 claimed the company had decided to dissolve the condominium and force a sale of the properties. The offer gave the couple 10 days to sell at what the lawyer claimed was a better deal than they would likely get on the market. The supposed dissolution never happened, the couple says.

Hayes and Vanacore say that Dewberry sometimes allows visiting consultants to live in the condos. When the roundabout project appeared, the company also allowed a manager from the contractor to live there, they claim, which sparked confrontations that led them to call the police twice.

Hayes says he and the manager got into a confrontation when the worker allegedly drove a vehicle into the condo courtyard and through some plants. They could not immediately provide a police report for that incident but did for another, where Vanacore says she argued with the manager after demanding to see the roundabout construction permit.

According to the police report, she claimed the manager hit her with a car door and knocked her to the ground, while the manager acknowledged the impact but said she did not fall down and that it happened only after she refused his demands to back away. The police report says there was no evidence of a crime and contains no sign that North Georgia Concrete was made aware of the incident. The phone number listed in the police report for that manager went to a full voicemail box and no one responded to a text message from SaportaReport.

Hayes and Vanacore say one reason they haven’t sold to Dewberry is they think the offers are too low. But they also cite the need to take a stand against what they see as high-pressure and secrecy tactics.

“This entire unfolding of this is just disgusting to me,” says Hayes. “….You see things in movies and you read things in the paper and you think, ‘Maybe that’s not true. It seems like fantasy.’ And now we’re actually living it.”