Bid for technical college in North Fulton heats up

By April Hunt and Ralph Ellis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sandy Springs wants to be a college town.

Ditto, Roswell. And maybe Alpharetta.

The north Fulton cities already have private universities and a state community college. But only one will become home to a new technical college campus in the coming years, creating a battle among communities that have recently worked hard to cooperate, not compete.

“We are all going after this as hard as we can,” Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos said of a $42.5 million satellite campus of Gwinnett Technical College.

So far, only Sandy Springs has taken any action while the cities wait for College President Sharon Bartels to give a presentation to the north Fulton mayors at a meeting Sept. 16.

This week, Galambos appointed a task force to consider the college’s request of what it needs in land and money to build the new campus. That request is expected to come during Thursday’s meeting.

Roswell and Alpharetta are waiting to learn those details before taking action. But leaders there have said they could team up in an effort to best the deeper pockets of Sandy Springs.

“If we have to bid against Alpharetta and Sandy Springs, I tell you they’ve both got more money than us,” Roswell Mayor Jere Wood said during an Aug. 23 council meeting.

Johns Creek is not in the running because it’s too close to the current college campus in Lawrenceville, leaders there said. Milton officials said they didn’t know much about the idea and have not pursued it.

One thing about the proposal is certain: the winning city will have to give up money – either in cash or land – to make the campus a reality.

Bartels has said she would like a site large enough to match the current Gwinnett Tech campus, a 100-acre school with more than 5,000 students.

The cities vying for the campus want that daily influx of learners and consumers to boost  economic development and the bragging rights that come with a state college.

Galambos said this week that Sandy Springs could build a multi-story building, either along Ga. 400 or her preferred spot just south of Interstate 285 at Roswell Road. That Northside area is home to several old apartment buildings that could be torn down to create the campus.

The Sandy Springs task force met briefly Wednesday to pinpoint possible sites. Members will meet formally once details emerge next week, said committee chairman Charlie Roberts.

“There is a lot of opportunity here for the college and to enhance any city that gets it, but also the whole region,” said Roberts, whose real estate development and construction business has been based in Sandy Springs for 40 years.

It would be an even more regional affair if Roswell and Alpharetta team up. Wood said the campus should be north of the Chattahoochee River, making Mansell Road near Ga. 400 a spot that would satisfy both cities.

Alpharetta Mayor Arthur Letchas said he’d talked to Wood about a combination bid but didn’t want to commit until hearing from the college next week.

“I think it’s a good idea to have that school in north Fulton, but I don’t know what we’d have to give up,” Letchas said.

Bartels said that she and the state tech college board want to make sure the college is in “the right place.”

“Where is our highest unemployment rate?” she asked. “Where is the education rate the lowest? Where does the mass transit flow? Those are the kind of things we look at.”

It will be at least a year before Gwinnett Tech is expected to put a north Fulton campus on its capital projects list. Just last week, the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia released its project list for 2011, and the north Fulton campus was not included. That means it will be at least 2012 before any construction could begin.

It would be the first technical college built from the ground up since 1996, when Sandersville Technical College opened in East Georgia. The technical college system includes 26 schools that historically prepare students directly for work in areas ranging from health sciences to automotive technology to culinary arts.