20 People to Watch - Michael Phillips: The developer

Michael Phillips knows Ponce City Market better than most Atlantans. It’s not just because the 45-year-old Jamestown Properties president has spent the last three years redeveloping the former Sears and Roebuck building that has loomed over Ponce de Leon Avenue for nearly a century. As a child, the California native and a friend from Inman Middle School used to visit the department store, formerly located on the building’s first floor, and gaze wide-eyed at the annual Christmas offerings. In his 20s, Phillips served on the board of Park Pride, the local greenspace nonprofit once housed in what was known as City Hall East. Since then the swath of Northeast Atlanta has slowly risen from its gritty malaise — and PCM is the last piece of the puzzle that needs to fall in place, Phillips says.

Once PCM opens in 2015, the nearly 2 million-square-foot site along the Atlanta Beltline will boast a combination of retail, dining, residential, and commercial unlike any other project of its kind in the country.

“I got to see the beginnings of the gentrification of Virginia-Highland and burgeoning communities,” he says. “Doing Ponce now is a fulfillment of the last unrepaired part of the neighborhood. Sort of the big hole.”

Phillips first made his mark in the late 1990s with the co-development of an industrial area on Zonolite Road near Sage Hill Shopping Center. He then took a gamble on Atlanta’s Westside with the development of the Westside Provisions District, a venture that sparked the transformation of the warehouse district into a retail and dining hot spot that’s lured artists, hipsters, and even Buckhead Betties.

Phillips now spends most of his time in New York, where he lives with his partner, designer Dominick Coyne, and their 6-year-old Jack Russell, Scout. But Atlanta is “still home and I’m very happy about that,” Phillips says. He still owns a home in Morningside and returns often to check on PCM and other Jamestown properties, including White Provision. In a few months, he might bunk in a special company-owned apartment in PCM’s tower when he checks on the project that’s quietly humming along. Inside, 10 construction managers and a 65-person development team are overseeing the finishing touches on the project.

“What’s happening inside is truly breakneck speed,” Phillips says. “That’s our first half of the year. There will be a lot of joy, celebration, and engagement in the second half.”

He’s proud that developing PCM helped save one of the city’s quirkiest historic?buildings, one that puts a “major stake in the ground” in the new economy by boasting tech and media companies. But equally important as the places where people will work and spend their cash are the places where they can spend their time. PCM, done right, could become a new hub for intown Atlanta. Its rooftop, packed with Midway-style amusements, restaurants, and an events space, will be a place where, Phillips says, people will make lasting memories.

Jamestown has experience with these types of projects. Look no further than Chelsea Market, the former biscuit factory in Manhattan that is now a commercial and retail wonderland, for another example. And so does Phillips.

“Having done the Westside Provisions District and White Provision, I think what has been the most gratifying personal achievement is creating urban Main Street cultures where people can invest themselves,” Phillips says. “Ten years from now, I hope that Ponce has become a backdrop to important occasions in peoples’ lives, economic stability, and nurturing the community.”

?