MANCHESTER
GALLERY
LOCATION
Atlanta, Georgia
TYPE OF DEVELOPMENT
  • 5.151 acres
  • 5.7 acres
  • 115 homes (20.2 u/a)
  • Zoning: Planned Development Housing (PD-H), MR-4B-C
  • All internal streets are private.
  • Development of roads and utilities were done simultaneously with the construction of the Manchester homes. This can save 1 year in the development cycle and can typically only be done if the Developer and the Builder are the same entity.
Manchester by Hedgewood Homes is located midway between Buckhead and Midtown Atlanta, just east of Piedmont Road. The area around Manchester is transitional, consisting of retail, adult entertainment establishments, commercial buildings, and scattered apartments. To create Manchester, Hedgewood Homes assembled several properties including a plant nursery, a manufacturing facility, and parking lot. Several city streets abutt the property including Manchester Street, Liddell Drive, and Bismark Road.

Over a 4 year period, Hedgewood acquired, site planned, and re-zoned the existing properties, developed the land, and built the Manchester homes. With initial home prices starting in the mid $300k’s, final home prices were between $800k-$900k with resales going for over $1M.
Manchester Architecture & Landscaping
  • Emphasis on thoughtful design and execution of architectural detailing was critical in successfully creating the Manchester community.
  • Each home in Manchester is custom designed for the site with no stock plans used on the project.
  • Extensive amounts of masonry and steel were used on the homes to create a richer and more established look, allowing Manchester to age well.
  • Most Manchester homes are 3-stories with some 2 and 4-story homes placed throughout the community.
  • Houses range from 1,250 SF to 4,200 SF with homes varying in size and price intermixed.
  • Rooftop gardens on top of some homes were designed to take advantage of views and to compensate for lack of ground garden space.
  • Many Manchester homes enjoy private landscaped courtyards, most walled and gated for privacy.
  • Numerous common gardens connected by pathways and graced with lush landscaping are placed throughout the community, an intentional design feature critical to making Manchester’s density work.
  • Manchester homes enjoy numerous parking options with most homes featuring attached garages, dedicated covered parking, or dedicated uncovered parking.
    • 3 Manchester homes have street parking only.
Machester Site plan
  • Common areas and paths are found throughout the Voysey community, in addition to connections to the Alpha Loop Trail.
  • Manchester enjoys common parks and paths throughout with a centrally located swimming pool.
  • Homes are used to enclose the swimming pool common area, saving space and fence costs while maximizing the layout of the pool and surrounding lounge area in an already dense plan.
  • Thoughtful lot layouts intentionally provide for random house patterns yielding a wide variety of house sizes and prices, with some homes intentionally skewed relative to the roads for visual interest and variety.
  • A mixture of attached and detached homes adds variety and value, with varying home sizes and sales prices strategically scattered throughout the community; no “estate home” section.
  • The existing topography was used to elevate homes above the heavily trafficked Lambert Drive by about 8 feet. Garden gates were provided at the street sidewalk with steps up to the homes’ front gardens to maintain the pedestrian relationship with the street.
  • No gates were used on any of the public or private streets and alleys serve some of Manchester’s homes.
  • Storm/water quality system is located under the roads.
  • Existing public streets are used for visitor and some resident parking.
  • The Developer retained 9 homes for lease and has retained the Declarant role and HOA control to ensure maintenance and architectural integrity even after all homes are sold.
Project Thoughts
  • Over 20 u/acre is very dense especially with larger homes. Tall homes (3 stories) close to the street block out light and feel tight—could use more 2-story homes to keep height down.
  • Would have liked the opportunity to create more private gardens, but that is difficult with a project of this density.
  • Alleys are a nice solution since the garages are on the alley hiding them from the main street. However, they require a lot of space that could be used for gardens or deeper front setbacks.
  • When possible, refrain from building a custom home specifically requested by a buyer. It is much more effective to build well-designed and well-built spec homes as the designs and size of custom homes upset the original vision of the developer for the community.
All information is believed to be accurate but is not warranted.
GALLERY