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Author: REPRINT FROM THE ROSWELL NEIGHBOR
November 6, 2009
Owners of Diesel Pizza and Pub, Tara and Jim Cameron were recently awarded the "Sensitive Rehabilitation/ Restoration" for the restoration of their restaurant.
Every morning as she drove her son to preschool, Roswell resident Tara Cameron would note the old, vacant building at the corner of Norcross and Alpharetta streets.
“We had our eyes on that place a year before it went up for lease. We thought it would be a great place for a pub,” she said.
Two years later, Cameron and her husband Jim have received an award from the Georgia Downtown Association and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for their rehabilitation of the vintage 1940s service station, now Diesel Pizza and Pub.
“Jim and Tara Cameron took a chance on a building which had served Roswell’s automotive needs since 1948 and needed a lot of TLC,” said Cherith Marshall, the Roswell city employee who nominated the Camerons for the Sensitive Rehabilitation/Restoration award.
The building in the city’s historic district had previously been home to Taylor’s Auto Service, Weatherford and Wingo and Marcus Auto Repair and Tire Service, Marshall said, before the Camerons came along in 2007.
Sited on a small corner lot at a busy downtown intersection, issues such as modern-day parking and setback requirements posed some problems, Tara Cameron said.
“I knew Canton Street area had parking issues, but I also knew it’s pedestrian friendly and people would just walk up the street to a business,” she said.
The Camerons arranged an off-site parking agreement with a nearby property owner and the city’s board of zoning appeals granted a setback variance to allow a storage shed.
Opened in 2008, the one-story, Art Moderne-style gas station-turned-pub has large store front windows and a central ornamented brick tower. Built of brick and concrete blocks, the structure has two garage doors located on the front façade. The Camerons made very few changes to the exterior and designed the interior to reflect the building’s past automotive uses, using photographs of vintage cars owned by locals and Pure gas station memorabilia on the walls.
According to Marshall, the Sensitive Rehabilitation/Restoration Award honors façade or interior improvements and re-use of existing downtown structures with concern for the historic components and overall compliance with a downtown’s design guidelines. Projects awarded must show creativity and best utilization of existing space.
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