DEL.ICIO.USProspect Park opening pushed back to 2010
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, November 10, 2008
The struggling economy is to blame for the construction slowdown at the Prospect Park site, at the corner of Georgia 400 and Old Milton Parkway, according to the project’s developer.
The opening date, which initially was fall 2007, has now been pushed to 2010, said Newnan developer Stan Thomas.
“We’ve had to slow down because of things out of our control,” he said. “But we’re still moving ahead. We’re definitely doing it.”
A number of tenants, including Whole Foods and AMC Theatres, have said they won’t be able to open sooner than the fall of 2010, the developer said. It will be April before major construction starts again, he added.
Over a year ago Thomas Enterprises announced Texas-based Whole Foods, a natural and organic foods chain with seven stores in metro Atlanta, committed to leasing a 68,800-square-foot store within the development. The company has decided to scale back its plans and open a smaller store, just under 50,000 square-feet, a Whole Foods official said.
“Bigger isn’t necessarily always better, and we decided that this is just a better fit for the development, for the area and for Whole Foods Market,” said spokeswoman Darrah Horgan.
Though the foundation and parking deck for the original Whole Foods plan has already been poured, Thomas said the additional space will be made into another store.
Prospect Park first went before the Alpharetta City Council in 2005. Then it was proposed as a 64.4-acre project with 472 condominiums, 400,250 square feet of office space, a 136-room hotel and 835,350 square feet of retail space. The plan has since grown to 90 acres and calls for fewer residences but more office and retail space. Some of the precise specs are unclear.
Since there’s been no heavy construction in the past several months, most of the development’s recent activity has been focused on completing Westside Parkway, Thomas said.
When the Alpharetta City Council approved the mixed-use development in 2005, one of the conditions required the developers to extend Westside Parkway between Webb Bridge Road and Old Milton Parkway.
The extension cost approximately $20 million, Thomas said. In September, the developer thought the roadway would be open in November, but it too has been delayed.
“We’ve been informed by representatives from Thomas Enterprises that the road will be ready to open in January,” said Diana Wheeler, Sandy Springs community development director. “We’ve also been told that the delay has been caused by the ordering of the road’s light fixtures, which haven’t yet arrived.”
Thomas said he doesn’t foresee any other hiccups, but the state of the economy makes it impossible to say for sure.
“We have banks collapsing everyday, so it’s hard to know what’s going on with the banks.” he said.
When asked about loans and funding for the project, he said, “we haven’t started funding any of it, so we don’t know.”
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