This week could bring answers on the location of the new Atlanta Falcons stadium.
The Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the Falcons face a self-imposed Thursday deadline for reaching agreements to buy two churches on the preferred site just south of the Georgia Dome. And, in advance of that deadline, the GWCCA board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a resolution that would permit the Falcons to perform feasibility studies, including soil testing, on the alternative site a half mile north of the Dome.
While nothing contractually precludes extending negotiations with Mount Vernon Baptist and Friendship Baptist churches beyond Thursday — or returning to those talks later — the Falcons don’t want the process to veer off its timetable.
“If we don’t have a deal by (Thursday), we would focus our attention on the north site,” Kim Shreckengost, executive vice president of Falcons parent company AMB Group, said Monday. “The primary reason is that we have to figure out where to focus because we are in the schematic phase of the design process and it becomes more site-specific.”
A July 11 letter from Falcons president Rich McKay to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Atlanta Chief Operating Officer Duriya Farooqui and GWCCA executive director Frank Poe — obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the state’s Open Records Act — expressed concern that the difficult negotiations had kept the team from having access to the properties to determine if the south site is feasible.
“I just wanted to … again emphasize the short timeline we are all operating under related to site feasibility,” McKay wrote. “Be assured that we continue to push forward with design and preparation for construction but that this critical phase of the process must remain on schedule.”
The agreement reached earlier this year between the Falcons and the GWCCA states that, if the south site is not deemed feasible — including property acquisiton — by Aug. 1, attention can shift to a study of the state-owned north site at the corner of Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard and Northside Drive. Neighborhood associations expressed strong opposition last week to putting the stadium at that location, saying it would be too close to residences.
The Falcons have started surveying the north site and plan to begin more extensive examination of it this week, pending GWCCA board approval, Shreckengost said.
The resolution on the agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting would give the Falcons “the right to examine and review all aspects of the physical condition” of the site, “including engineering, soils, geotechnical, wetlands and … environmental inspections.”
Lloyd Hawk, chairman of Friendship Baptist’s board of trustees, kept open the possibility Monday of making a deal before Thursday. Calls to Mount Vernon Baptist were not returned.
“We’re still negotiating,” Hawk said. “There is nothing scheduled and nothing pending at this moment.”
In an indication that negotiations with Friendship have progressed, Hawk said the church permitted the Falcons to begin soil testing on its property late last week.
“When we did our last couple of renovations (most recently in 1998), we tested and there were no issues,” he said.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the GWCCA board will vote on a half dozen contracts regarding various aspects of the stadium project that have been negotiated with the Falcons since a memorandum of understanding was completed in March. These documents flesh out the earlier terms, providing more specifics. Drafts of the new contracts reviewed by the AJC showed no material changes in the key terms approved earlier.
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