APRIL 21, 2005
Atlanta Journal Constitution - DeKalb Business

'Station' has lively mix of tenants
Old Chemical plant obscured architectural treasure-trove

In 2003, architect jack Honderd and two partners bought Decatur's old Biolab property, which no one ever confused with the Garden of Eden. Behind its brick facade, Biolab was a rambling, amorphous structure of time roofs and stucco walls, or what Honderd describes, succinctly, as "a lot of crap."

Initially the triumvirate, which also includes Pat Murphy and Chuck Bosserman, planned to hold the land for five years, Honderd said, "then demolish every thing and start over."

Currently, 17 tenants occupy the six acres, ranging from Push Push Theater -- "pushing the boundaries of performance," its Web site proclaims -- to Ducky's Cookies to Figo's Italian Restaurant to the Oakhurst Corner Pub to All Souls Fellowship Church, which, Pastor Shayne Wheeler said, "is not your grandfather's Presbyterian church."

In December 2003, All Souls became East Decatur Station's first tenant, and Wheeler couldn't be happier with those who've followed him. "No, you don't expect to find a church next to a hair salon with a cutting-edge theater behind it and a nearby coffee shop," the pastor said.

"And you can't beat the Corner Pub. Now we don't have to walk very far to get a beer."

East Decatur Station became possible when, in February 2002, the city of Decatur completed a Livable Cities Initiatives study focusing on an approximately half-mile stretch of East College Avenue from Columbia Drive/Commerce Drive to the Avondale MARTA Station.

The study concluded that "[this] area cannot continue to be the same type of industrial area that it once was," and proceeded to outline a five-phase redevelopment proposal running through 2027.

The goal was to create what the LCI study called a "new neighborhood center" of high-density commercial/residential development.

Soon after purchasing Biolab -- smack in the middle of the LCI grid -- Honderd, Murphy and Bosserman decided they couldn't afford to wait five years to develop.

"Almost from the minute we bought the property," Honderd said, "people from the nearby neighborhoods started asking about our plans. They wanted to see someting close to their homes, and they wanted something sooner rather than later."

The partners also changed their minds about an unmitigated razing.

"In the beginning," Murphy said, "we thought we were tearing down this dated, 1960-ish brick building. But after pulling down one of the first walls, we found wedged inside an Atlanta Journal from 1893.

"We pulled out more walls and it became apparent we were uncovering a very, very old building buried underneath all this Biolab stuff."

Honderd, the architect, said it's "very unusual to find something like this."

"The best way I can explain it," he said, "is that Biolab cobbled together roofs, walls, floors, a tunnel and tried to make it look like one big building.

"But what we found underneath was a treasure-trove. We found four completely separate structures."

They included one large stone building -- possibly a warehouse, maybe even an old horse-and-buggy facility -- that might date, Honderd thinks, to 1880.

In opening East Decatur Station, Honderd and company have exposed a sampling of that era.

"We've done a lot of tearing, wall removal, cutting big holes and adding windows," Honderd said. "We cut a swath in back [of the brick facade] -- in other words, we just sliced right through the middle. We tore up Biolab's chemical pools and created a courtyard [with a 'keystone zen pool'] with green space."

In a sense, College Avenue is returning to its pre-World War II roots, with retail outlets, live/work units and a church -- though, as Wheeler points out, not your typical midcentury type of church.

"We are orthodox Presbyterian," he said.

"But our congregation pretty much fits the contemporary Decatur demographic -- gay, straight, young, old, artist, businessman, people with tattoos and piercings. I have a shaved head and earrings myself.

"In other words," he said, "the traditional structure, the steeple and the pipe organ, that doesn't fit our mojo."