The vacant former Krystal building near the Marietta Square will become the new home of a Starbucks coffee house in April.
Staff/Laura Moon
Staff/Laura Moon
Council approved a variance request Wednesday in a 6-0 vote, with Councilman Philip Goldstein having left the room to avoid a conflict of interest because his son, University of Georgia sophomore Joseph Goldstein, owns the property in question.
The Starbucks plans to open in April.
When Krystal, which had leased the property since the mid 1970s, didn’t renew its lease this spring, the younger Goldstein purchased the 2,433-square-foot building on 0.53 acres for $800,000 in August from the family estate of James H. Brooks Sr.
The younger Goldstein, who is studying business, plays clarinet in the Red Coat Marching Band at the University of Georgia, his father said.
“We are thrilled that Starbucks is coming and also believe it will have a very positive effect on the downtown business community,” Councilman Goldstein said.
The councilman said that before it became public knowledge, half the people who asked him what would occupy the building said they hoped to see a Starbucks there.
“There are a lot of Starbucks fans around,” he said.
Councilman Grif Chalfant said he looks forward to the coffee house opening as well.
“I’m totally excited,” Chalfant said. “I love the design, I love the extra landscaping, I’m just totally enamored with the project.”
Chalfant said none of the 200 or so constituents on his email list he shared the project with had any complaints about it.
As for whether he drinks Starbucks coffee, “it gets a little expensive for me,” Chalfant said.
“I am a coffee drinker, but I stick to QuikTrip,” he said. “But I noticed at that Starbucks on Dallas Highway, it’s backed up all the time. In the hot afternoon, it’s backed up.”
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Suggest everyone visit downtown Acworth to see a beautiful looking little town. The businesses in Acworth work together to maintain a first-class and vintage looking downtown.
Starbucks WILL NOT have this family's business, and I will urge all of my neighbors on Northcutt to do the same. We will walk to Cool Beans like we always have.
Philip Goldstein left the room to avoid conflict of interest? Hilarious. This town is so incestuous and only bent on making certain of its residents successful.
I will not patronize the Starbucks, instead giving my business to Cool Beans, the independent coffee shop that supports local artists and writers, and I will urge others to do the same.
Perhaps Phil the pill should have used some of the 800k he gave jr to fix some of his exsisting rat holes.
Triple Net that .....
Um. How?
Cool Beans Coffee Roasters is already downtown within spitting distance of the proposed Starbucks.
Cool Beans' quality is vastly superior to Starbucks, no comparison, so how does the addition of a crappy coffee chain have a positive effect?
The effects I see are
= Starbucks running Cool Beans out of business as morons drive-thru at Starbucks, thus damaging the rents of non-Goldstein properties, lowering the values of non-Goldstein buildings, allowing the Goldstein family eventually to take over EVERYTHING while buying low.
= Tractor Trailers delivering warehouse items to Starbucks, royalling messing with traffic getting in and out of there
= Starbucks not meeting sales requirements (due to being an "afternoon" corner, the SunTrust corner is where they would need to be for "morning" traffic) and eventually being closed by corporate for not meeting goals, but only after running Cool Beans out of business thus devaluing the non-Goldstein property where Cool Beans currently resides.
If you want Goldstein Incorporated to buy more buildings downtown, and if you want downtown to contain more marginal businesses that can't survive due to not understanding their triple option lease or whatever, this is a fantastic idea. Otherwise? Not so much.
Can nobody else around here see the Goldstein Inc vision? In my opintion that family seems to be using landlord monopoly power to shut down competition so they can further their real estate interests in the downtown area.
Think about it. Who came up with all those housing projects downtown that made downtown property near worthless in the 1970s, hmm?? Remember that? I do. Who bought up half of downtown after devaluing it to near-worthlessness with public housing projects? I wonder!
I suspect there is a 100-year real estate plan downtown and Starbucks looks to be an unwitting participant.
My opinion is that Starbucks will be a victim (likely soon to be replaced by an afternoon drive-thru place... fast food, probably), so will Cool Beans, if you ask me, and so will all of Marietta except for Marietta's one percent.. with a freaking college sophomore owning the old Krystal's.
Why does a college sophomore own the Krystal's building? Most sophomores can't own a t-shirt without destroying it. Did he save his allowance and buy it? Or did Dad find some sort of tax loophole that made it advantageous for the sophomore to own it? I really wonder, don't you? Is the sophomore an unwitting victim too? Even that wouldn't surprise me!
How about some more of that hard hitting MDJ investigative journalism cover the "Marietta 100 year real estate monopoly plan"?
HA HA HA.
Cool Beans has its following, but frankly it does not merit protection of any sort.
Absentee landlord and absentee owners.
Next time you go there, look carefully at the place and fixtures. It is poorly cared for and despite the coffee being tasty, it is gross.