The Vision

Cascade United Methodist Church (Cascade) is developing a new community on 141 acres in the City of East Point, Georgia. The vision of this new community, known as Cascade Acres, is modeled after the planning concepts developed in the Garden Suburb movement, which integrate a respect for nature, design excellence, and a higher calling to create a truly special community for both today and tomorrow.

This vision for Cascade Acres will be achieved through the use of key hallmarks of Garden Suburb design. Curving streets and tree-lined sidewalks will foster an intimate, safe, and green neighborhood setting, while discouraging speeding. As many trees as possible will remain in place to enhance the community’s park-like setting. Greenway paths and parks will be available for residents to enjoy. Most importantly, the new Cascade Worship Center and peripheral charter school and recreational facility will serve as the community’s focal points, all within walking distance of residents.

In this way, development challenges of the site have been utilized as opportunities to create a sense of place. The creek, running north/south near the western property line of the site and two gas line easements, one bisecting the property east and west, and the other along the northern property line have been utilized in the plan to create interconnected green spaces that weave through the entire site, knitting it together.

PROJECT MISSION STATEMENT
We believe in the premise that the principles guiding the work of Cascade United Methodist Church are the same as those affecting the design of its physical facilities. This reciprocity between spiritual mission and physical plan is the foundation of our design philosophy. Supporting this is our belief that for physical planning to be truly successful, it must grow from sound principles, while balancing the visionary with the realistic. To achieve this, we use a collaborative approach that actively involves the congregation and all interested stakeholders from the surrounding community to ensure their support and allegiance to the vision.

The Site

The Cascade Acres site is located approximately ¼ mile from the Camp Creek Marketplace in the fast growing City of East Point; it is currently zoned Office/Institutional. Most of the property to

the east and north of the site is zoned Business Park and has a mix of commercial office/warehouse and distribution space. The land south of the site is an established residential community. The site was selected for its location, accessibility, and natural beauty. Over the years, several industrial developers passed on developing it as an industrial site, seeing it as more appropriately suited for a residentially anchored mixed-use development. The mixed-use development that Cascade is planning will serve as a buffer between the higher density commercial development to the north and the well established residential neighborhoods to the south.

Development Team

In order to undertake the development, Cascade United Methodist Church has created Cascade Acres, LLC, as its development agent, with Hattie B. Dorsey serving as its CEO, and has selected as its Master Development partner The Integral Group (Integral). Cascade has also engaged other consultants and sub-consultants, including Turner Associates Architects and Planners, Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh & Associates (TSW), DKS Program Management (DKS) and First Class, Inc. to help manage the project.

The partnership between Cascade Acres, LLC, and The Integral Group represents an affiliation between an outstanding Church family and one of the region’s premier development companies. The partnership is committed to creating a first class, mixed-use, master planned community. This project represents the vision of a church family to create an outstanding community.

Project Approach

With this notion in mind, the new development is beginning to take form. The design team has produced a master plan and a set design standards for the community that will guide the direction and implementation of all other design work. Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh has been the lead designer. They are a cutting edge planning and design firm with a philosophy of sustainable development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The result is healthy vibrant communities developed in a socially and environmentally conscious manner that minimizes impact on natural environments while enhancing the built environment. Their approach to design has earned them national and international awards for the thoughtfulness and sensitivity of their design solutions.

Cascade will be a good partner and neighbor throughout the development process. The Church is counting on its East Point neighbors to share in it’s the vision and has been meeting with surrounding commercial property owners and neighborhood leaders since 2002. There is a strong collaboration between Cascade’s Development Team and the City of East Point. The Development is expected to embrace all of the principles of smart growth, and environmentally conscious design. The community will include a considerable amount of green space and walking trails. Working with the City of East Point and other community neighbors, the community will be designed to minimize impact on traffic and congestion in the Camp Creek corridor.

Cascade will solicit partners for certain proposed components, including a charter school, a recreational facility and the single family housing development. The other components including the site infrastructure and Worship Center will be implemented solely by Cascade Acres, LLC and Integral, the master developer.

Background and Planning Assumptions

The vision for this development grew from that of a Worship Center in a conventional religious facility environment, to one of a new community that weaves together the spiritual, educational, and community service offerings of Cascade in a broader neighborhood and community setting. The acreage of the site affords the opportunity to include various forms of housing and other facilities and amenities coexisting in a master planned community. Similarly, its natural beauty and topography lend to a carefully programmed system of open spaces that minimizes engineered intrusions.

The design philosophy guiding the vision for Cascade Acres is the Garden Suburb, a reform movement dating from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries that emerged in response to rapid industrialization in urban cores such as New York, Chicago, and Boston. As the cities became increasingly crowded, the conditions in which people lived rapidly deteriorated. Urban population growth far exceeded the ability of the urban infrastructure to handle the pollution and sewage produced, and the spread of disease became rampant.
The Garden Suburb movement evolved out of a desire to escape these bleak urban conditions and created reformed communities outside of the central city, but still within a short distance of its economic and cultural advantages. Garden Suburbs became a popular community type, the benefits of which were twofold: integrating nature into the landscape, and bringing residents back to the unpolluted countryside.

The Garden Suburb marked by a distinct set of design features blending the natural and man-made environments. The hallmark of its integration of town and landscape include:

• Design that is sensitive to topography
• Neighborhood parks
• Parkways
• Curving interconnected and green streets
• A community focal point

The Cascade Acres master plan has all these elements and more. It is organized around a system of streets and parkways and greenspaces that define and connect three programmatic areas; Worship, Witness, and the East Point Mandate (residential for-sale housing). The plan is a mixture and proximity of worship, learning, living, and playing uses. Forty of the 140 acres are designated for the Worship area, thirty acres for Witness, and the balance for the East Point Mandate.

The Worship area will accommodate the new Sanctuary, Christian Education facilities, Administrative offices, Choir Rooms, and all the attendant parking and support services. It is estimated that 1,200 parking spaces will be needed with a portion of these to be accommodated in a parking structure. The Witness program area will have a Charter School, Fitness Center Facility, and Senior Independent and Assisted Living residences. The East Point Mandate program area will include residential units for sale in a combination of Townhomes, Carriage Homes and Estate Homes. In all, there will be approximately 500 units in this combination of types.

Topographic sensitivity is also central to the plan. A set of design guidelines prepared by TSW provides recommended best practices for dealing with existing grades, particularly as they affect the future relationship between buildings and streets. Homes are served by rear alleys or lanes to the maximum extend afforded by topography. The guidelines include a deliberate effort to ensure wheelchair accessibility on all sites, while creating a strong separation between public and private realms via retaining walls, knee walls, fences or hedges.

In this way, development challenges of the site have been utilized as opportunities to create a sense of place. The creek, running north/south near the western property line of the site and two gas line easements, one bisecting the property east and west, and the other along the northern property line have been utilized in the plan to create interconnected green spaces that weave through the entire site, knitting it together.