Assignment10: Hanieh

The place I examined was an abandoned lot and building located on Piedmont Road North East. The lot is right across a newly built apartment complex (2008) and a shopping center which has big box stores like Home depot and Target. The surrounding area seems all renovated or newly built. The only spaces abandoned and decayed in that area are the lot from which I took my photos and another one just next to it with a sign reading “Property of Marta: No trespassing.”

The building has some features that make it look like a former restaurant. First, there is a very big skeleton beside the street with missing signs. Second, there is a big parking lot in front of the building that, as we saw before, are for inviting motorists in. Another feature is the building’s special style that, like other restaurants trying to get attentions through a special façade, has a façade just like the Shoney’s restaurants. The next feature is its ventilators which are like the ones restaurants use. It also has large windows, now covered by wooden boards, which as we read before too, are designed so that motorists see what is going on inside the building.

The building is abandoned probably because of bankruptcy or similar reasons: the building still seems useable. In fact, it seems to be once renovated while the bricks are colored and the roof and eaves’ color are good. Therefore, it should have been left vacant for a reason other than the building’s age/destruction. However, it should be a relatively long time since this building is left vacant because the parking lot and the surrounding area are full of weed and bush and completely destroyed.

The most probable future occupation for this site should be another restaurant because of its location, being at the vicinity of so many residential buildings and a shopping center. Also, it has a ready space for big signs and a parking lot right in front of the store. Besides, the building itself has kitchen and sitting areas and also large windows in front of it, all making that a potentially appropriate place as a restaurant.