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The Miami Circle Merchants Association has apparently created this website in an attempt to stop The Spence wine director and GM Justin Amick from opening The Painted Pin as its plans currently stand, calling it "not the right fit for [the] community." The Painted Pin, Amick's forthcoming bowling alley, is slated to open in 2014 in Buckhead's Miami Circle.
On the website dedicated to the cause, the association states that it is not in support of the special administrative permit the city of Atlanta approved for The Painted Pin because the permit was approved for a "family entertainment complex," not a restaurant/bar. Miami Circle merchants have filed an appeal of the grant that will be heard by the Atlanta Board of Zoning Adjustments in December.
The entertainment complex permit requires significantly fewer parking spaces than that of a restaurant:
The Miami Circle Merchants Association is of the opinion, that due to the operational intentions of the Painted Pin, that the City of Atlanta require the Painted Pin to meet the parking requirements of a restaurant or bar, and not a Family Entertainmemt Complex.
During a meeting with the association, they also purported to have live entertainment, and customer dancing. The applicant intends to close at 3 a.m. on weekend nights and after midnight, on most weekdays. This is not your typical bowling alley/family entertainment complex.
Update: The Painted Pin's Justin Amick responds:
We are lifelong Atlantans and current residents of the Buckhead community. Miami Circle is a landmark destination and we greatly value its importance in Atlanta; hence the reason we chose this special location for our bowling alley project, The Painted Pin. We are 100% within code and have successfully completed all permitting within the city of Atlanta. We are excited to break ground in the immediate future and are looking forward to becoming great neighbors to all the surrounding businesses.
Read the website's full text below, head here to see the site, and as always, do leave intel and thoughts in the comments or send 'em through the tipline.
No Painted Pin on Miami Circle
The city of Atlanta has approved a SAP (special administrative permit) for the Painted Pin, an approximately 24,000 square foot facility which includes a bowling alley, two kitchens, one for pizzas only, large bar and seating for more than 140 people, for eating and drinking purposes. It also has plans for 12 urinals/toilets (under the 2006 International Plumbing Code such uses must have 1 toilet per 75 patrons), while only having 45 dedicated parking spaces for the entire venue (a number of which are "shared" with other businesses) and ten "valet" spaces in an area wherein their rights to use the property are presently the subject of a lawsuit. Importantly, though the application indicates it can, by using valet services, get additional parking on the property, their approved plans indicate a vast majority of the proposes spaces are 8-feet wide and 18 feet long (under the City of Atlanta Code a standard parking space is 180 square feet (9X20) and no more than 25% of all such parking may be for "compact" cars. The Painted Pin's parking plan shows more than HALF of their spaces already do not meet these standards.
You might ask yourself how a place of this magnitude, which will be able to have a likely occupant load (capacity), of more than 300 people at any given time, only be required to have 45 parking spaces? The answer is that the City of Atlanta only requires bowling alleys have 1 parking space for every 600 square feet of interior space, while requiring bars/restaurants/nightclubs are required to have 1 parking space for every 100 square feet of interior space. Calculated as simply a bowling alley, which is half of the floor area of the venue , or 12,000 square feet, they are required to have only 39-40 dedicated spaces. Calculated as a bar/restaurant/nightclub, they would be required to have 240 parking spaces, a much more realistic number, for a place it's size, of which only half is for bowling. If half of the space were to be calculated as a bowling alley, and half as bar/restaurant/nightclub, than the Association is of the opinion that they should be required to have 140 parking spaces. The Miami Circle Merchants Association is of the opinion, that due to the operational intentions of the Painted Pin, that the City of Atlanta require the Painted Pin to meet the parking requirements of a restaurant or bar, and not a Family Entertainmemt Complex.
During a meeting with the association, they also purported to have live entertainment, and customer dancing. The applicant intends to close at 3 a.m. on weekend nights and after midnight, on most weekdays. This is not your typical bowling alley/family entertainment complex.
No to a SAP for the Painted Pin!
Why? It is very simple. While their SAP application is for a family entertainment complex which discussed earlier, explains that the City of Atlanta Code requires only 1 space per 600 square feet, their filed plans show more than 140 seats which contemplate food and beverage sales. A restaurant (which is how the PP indicates it will secure its alcohol licensing), is required by COA Code to have 1 parking space per 100 square feet of space. At their presentation to the Miami Circle Merchants Association, they indicated that their operation would include a bar and restaurant with fine wines and great food, all encompassed inside a bowling alley/Entertainmemt complex. They also stated that they intend to have British Pub games.
Their plans shows only 39 dedicated parking spaces but they told us that their business plan is to serve 400-600 people per night. The Miami Circle Market Center is a design related street with art galleries, antique dealers and interior design showrooms. Most if not all of the shop owners have regular night time events. We believe bringing upwards of 400 additional cars on a daily basis to the Circle, will destroy the District, which the Merchants Association has spent millions of dollars in branding and marketing. A bowling alley/family entertainment complex/large restaurant/bar or nightclub with live entertainment and customer dancing, is not the right fit for our community.
The street is narrow by the City of Atlanta's definitions and on-street parking already leaves us virtually unable to navigate the street in the evenings. Given the recent decision by the Georgia 400 Trail project to locate a major trailhead at the terminus of Miami Circle and the impact of other businesses which already have dramatically fewer spaces available for parking than their current customer draws, it is our concern that the traffic volume and congestion from this project are incompatible with the existing uses. We have one company that has 2 spaces but brings in more than 100 extra cars filling our street on both sides making for a very dangerous situation. Bringing hundreds of more cars to Miami Circle on a daily basis, will create a logistical nightmare not only on the Circle, but onto an already traffic jammed Piedmont Road. Outside of the sheer gridlock we feel it will cause, real public safety issues will arise.
We have filed an appeal of the grant of the SAP to the Painted Pin which is scheduled to be heard by the Atlanta Board of Zoning Adjustments in December.
This post originally called The Painted Pin a "bowling alley and bar."
· No Painted Pin on Miami Circle [Miami Circle Shops]
· No Painted Pin on Miami Circle [Official Site]
· Justin Amick to Open Boutique Bowling Alley in 2014 [-EATL-]
