DEL.ICIO.USCobb looks to revive blighted corridor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, January 04, 2009
South Atlanta Road epitomizes Cobb County’s leapfrog development, whereby greener — and more lucrative — retail pastures await businesses farther and farther out.
A desultory mix of strip malls, body shops, brick ranches and weedy lots line the road between Smyrna and Marietta. The nearly vacant Belmont Hills Shopping Center anchors the route’s southern edge.
Kimberly Smith / ksmith@ajc.com
Areas along Atlanta Road often contain businesses that are located in what used to be residential housing, such as this landscaping company
Kimberly Smith / ksmith@ajc.com
Vandals have left their mark with graffiti on one of the many vacant storefronts in Belmont Hills Shopping Center along South Atlanta and Windy Hill roads.
County officials say they’ve hit upon the economic-development elixir to revitalize the depressing corridor. Borrowing a page from wealthy, sprawling and similarly challenged Fairfax County, Va., Cobb commissioners will be asked at their Jan. 27 board meeting to consider a special tax district for South Atlanta Road and other blighted corridors.
If approved, Cobb would be Georgia’s first county to use this rare form of tax-allocation district, or TAD.
In a down economy, though, will any business bite on the five-year tax break that requires significant upfront investment?
“The economy is going to hurt getting this program off the ground,” admitted Sam Olens, who chairs the County Commission. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t come forward with your proposal. We’re trying to create [development] on down the road.”
Like much of Atlanta’s close-in suburbs, the corridors targeted by Cobb are worn, frayed and too often blighted. Belmont Hills, for example, falls inexorably into decay, its owner promising to demolish the 50-acre shopping center and rebuild with condos, shops and offices.
All that remains are a Mexican restaurant and a discount clothing store. Even Alcoholics Anonymous quit the property at Windy Hill Road that’s remarkable only for its boarded-up windows, graffiti and broken glass.
“One day I drove through here and I was like, ‘Oh my God, did they close that store, too?’ ” recalled Wanda McGhee, a Marietta resident who commutes daily by Belmont Hills. “One by one, they were all gone.”
Cobb’s plan targets stretches of Canton Road and Veterans Memorial Highway, too. A dozen old shopping centers and strip malls join vacant Wal-Marts, cinemas, restaurants and a church as redevelopment targets.
If commissioners approve, properties eligible for the tax break must be at least 25 years old. They also must be demolished.
The assessed value of the redeveloped property must be worth at least 50 percent more than what it replaces and no larger than twice the size.
Cobb has tried in the past to jump-start redevelopment along these corridors to no avail.
“Three-fourths are older shopping centers that may have some significant vacancies or second-generation anchor tenants,” said Robert Hosack, the county’s community development director. “Maybe they used to have a grocery store and now it’s an ‘antique’ store. Or maybe they were old houses that have been retrofitted into an insurance office or something else.”
Most TADS help deep-pocketed developers build large-scale projects that promise new jobs and, in the future, tax revenues.
This one helps smaller property owners and focuses on redevelopment. The owner must continue to pay taxes on the property. But he or she gets a break on the new investment — 100 percent tax-free the first year. By year five, the owner must pay full freight.
Olens said the incentive could convince a skeptical banker to make a small-business loan.
Fairfax County’s revitalization program has been significantly modified since its 1997 inception. Once countywide, only five designated redevelopment districts and two, larger swaths of the Washington suburb remain eligible for the tax breaks.
Fairfax County, unlike Cobb’s plan, extends eligibility to apartment complexes. And its tax breaks can run 12 years. Several areas have been revitalized, but not fast enough for some citizens groups, said Janet Coldsmith, a county tax official. Marietta’s McGhee, no fan of tax breaks for business, nonetheless supports revitalization of South Atlanta Road’s retail base.
“I’d like to be able to do some more shopping, maybe have a grocery store, some little furniture shops as well as be able to get my hair done,” she said. “I’d like to see all that again.”
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