Piedmont Park high-rise, take two

Tivoli Properties CEO Scott Leventhal is hoping that what clearly wouldn’t fly for Gwinnett megadeveloper Wayne Mason might fly for him.

Nearly a year ago, Mason’s plans for a pair of 38- and 39-story condo towers were foiled after neighborhood activists argued that the towers would compromise the character — and infrastructure — of the mostly single-family-home surroundings. (Mason’s plan also put a temporary hitch in plans for the proposed Beltline, the 22-mile loop of transit and trails that would circle the city.)

Now, on the other side of the park, Leventhal wants to build a 25-story apartment tower.

According to a story in today’s AJC, Leventhal is trying to sweeten the deal. Mason had tried to sweeten his offering, too, but in a different way: Mason, who had owned a portion of the Beltline’s proposed path, wanted to give the city the Beltline property in exchange for permission to build the towers.

Leventhal, who wants to develop 250 apartments on 13th Street between Piedmont Avenue and Juniper Street, is extending to the city an olive branch of another variety:

Among the incentives he has offered in exchange for a rezoning of the property, Leventhal is proposing a “step down” architecture that would reduce the building’s height closer to the park and a half-price rental rate on 10 percent of the building’s units for Atlanta police officers and firefighters.

It seems doubtful that residents, whose input is required in the rezoning process, will embrace a project as dense as Leventhal’s in exchange for 25 apartments set aside for firefighters and cops. Then again, the neighborhood on that side of the park has more multifamily development, and Levanthal’s tower, though tall, has far fewer units than Mason’s twin towers.