10-07-2013 07:51 PM

Pepper Place highlighted as success story


Birmingham's Pepper Place was recently profiled by the Atlanta Business Chronicle after it won an award for excellence from the Urban Land Institute of Atlanta.




Pepper Place used to be where Dr. Pepper was bottled. Now it should bottle all the praise it receives as a successful downtown redevelopment project.
Pepper Place, which won the Urban Land Institute of Atlanta's Award for Excellence in September, was recently profiled in our sister publication the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
The ABC profile says, in part:
" 'Pepper Place is a prime example of adaptive reuse and responsible use of land, said Chris Sweitzer, the commercial real estate lending manager for the northern Georgia region at BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT). “They took an industrial property and reused it with a vision toward revitalization — instead of tearing it down or selling it and moving out to the suburbs and building something new on what used to be undeveloped land or someone’s farmhouse,” said Sweitzer, one of the judges for the Urban Land Institute Atlanta awards. "
The area was an abandoned warehouse district just 20 years ago, before Cathy Sloss Jones and her company Sloss Real Estate helped redevelop it into an attraction with a thriving farmers market and theater, as well as restaurants, shops and galleries. According to the ABC, the Pepper Place market began with just seven tents and has grown to 100 tents, drawing up to 10,000 visitors.
What's more, Sloss Jones recently told the BBJ she isn't quite done with the area yet.
Brent Godwin is the online editor and social engagement manager for the Birmingham Business Journal. Click here to follow him on Twitter.


Continue Reading >>