AJC SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT – THIS WEEK’S TOPIC: NORTHSIDE DEVELOPMENT
The words used to describe this piece of land have not been kind: A “sea of asphalt.” “Desolate.” “A black hole.” It’s a bleak shopping center just outside the Perimeter in Doraville, but developers are hoping to change that. A largescale redevelopment could give new life to the property through a mix of retail and more than 300 apartments. On the surface, it seems like a standard redevelopment project targeting another decades-old shopping center.
As a real estate investor, I’m often asked: “What inning do you think we’re in now?”
Candidly, I’m not sure the baseball analogy – that so many in our industry use – really fits the real estate cycle. If baseball was like real estate, it’s entirely possible we’re in extra innings or are playing the second game of a double header.
The challenge is that each real estate cycle is uniquely different from prior ones. Whereas, baseball games are fairly predictable. Each baseball game usually has nine innings, and every game has the milestone “seventh inning stretch” along with the “last call for alcohol.”
