Gym owner Lon Barclay was willing to sign a short-term lease to get ?cheap? rent and 350 parking spots at the old Three Dollar Cafe. He says he's paying $13k per month for 22k SF at the high-profile location at Peachtree and Pharr, much less than rates at other Buckhead locations he considered. Sure, his lease is only three years, but he figures it'll be longer than that before developers are interested in the land again. He guesses he has five to ten years—long enough to build a Buckhead clientele who?ll move with him. Barclay, who has gyms in Smyrna and Dawsonville, plans to open the new Energy Fitness next month.

Yesterday, when we snapped this of the Energy Fitness van, we thought it quite symbolic that the idle cranes at the Streets of Buckhead (on the other side of Peachtree) were visible. The Three-Dollar building has been a vacant eyesore since 2006. Ben Carter had plans to build a 300k SF office building called Buckhead Esplanade there, with a Hotel Monaco on an adjacent site. All those plans, of course, are no more.