The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has stayed on top of the plan for a new downtown stadium from the beginning, watching every twist and turn. Today we report that negotiations haven’t really begun on acquiring two church sites that are key to the project.
The clock is ticking on a deal to buy two churches that stand in the way of a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons, but it doesn’t appear much progress has been made as formal negotiations have yet to begin.
Backers of a $1 billion, retractable-roof field want it at Martin Luther King Jr. and Northside drives. They need an agreement by Aug. 1 with Mount Vernon Baptist Church and historic Friendship Baptist Church to demolish their houses of worship.
There have been several meetings explaining the desire for a stadium to replace the 21-year-old Georgia Dome and why the church properties are needed, but a potential price or when the congregations might expect one have not been broached, the parties say.
Frank Poe, executive director of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, which is leading the potential deal with Mount Vernon on behalf of the state, said recently that the GWCCA is waiting word from the church on what it wants to do next.
Sonji Jacobs, spokeswoman from Mayor Kasim Reed, who is negotiating the sale for Friendship, said Wednesday that there is nothing new to report and “talks are in progress.”
“For the most part everyone is waiting for the formal offer and then we’ll have that deep discussion,” said Lloyd Hawk, chairman of Friendship’s board of trustees, about whether the church will sell.
Time could be of the essence.
Under terms outlining the stadium project among the Atlanta Falcons, the city and the GWCCA , if there is no deal to secure the church properties at the end of July, the Martin Luther King Jr.-Northside location — known as the “south site” — will be abandoned and the stadium’s construction will automatically shift almost a mile north of the Dome to Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard near Northside Drive.
And there is opposition in the churches to leaving the buildings.
At Friendship, Juanita Jones Abernathy, widow of civil rights icon David Abernathy, has been a vocal opponent of a sale, saying the 151-year-old church has too much historical importance to be leveled, including being the site of the early classes of Spelman and Morehouse colleges.
Mount Vernon leaders did not immediately return calls.
In addition, Common Cause Georgia on Thursday said it would launch a petition drive to force the city to ask voters whether public funding should be used in the stadium. However, City Attorney Cathy Hampton said Georgia Supreme Court case law prohibits such a referendum.
Robert Boland, academic chairman of the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New York University, said anything that could drag out the process, including property acquisition delays, could jeopardize the project.
“Until ground is broken, the project is always in doubt,” he said.
In the preferred plan, the stadium would be constructed where Mount Vernon currently sits while Friendship would be demolished to allow Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to be moved west into a curve to give the new stadium a bigger footprint.
Reed and downtown leaders pushed for the “south site” because it is closer to the city’s heart and because of its proximity to the Vine City and Georgia Dome MARTA stations.
But to strike a deal for the “south site,” the city and state have 60 days to get the two properties appraised, allow the back-and-forth of negotiating a price and give the church congregations time to vote whether to sell.
Neither property has been appraised by representatives of the project. Friendship’s property is worth more than $1.2 million and Mount Vernon’s tops $1 million, according to Fulton County tax records.
Despite the uncertainty of the location, plans for the stadium have moved ahead since the Falcons and local leaders agreed to funding terms earlier this year. The Falcons will pick up 80 percent of the stadium’s cost while about $200 million in city hotel-motel tax collections will fund the remaining expenditure.
The GWCCA hired Kansas-based 360 Architecture at the end of May to be the stadium’s architect for $35 million. In mid-May, the authority approved selling $15 million in bonds for property acquisition.
One issue Friendship’s congregation is mulling is where the church would go if members were willing to sell. The church, one of the oldest black congregations in the city, owns several tracts of land in the area, including a 206-unit apartment complex and a 103-unit high rise for seniors.
Either or both could be demolished for the construction of a new church, Hawk said. The buildings are at least 40 years old. But, he said, the church is hesitant to disrupt the lives of residents, even though Friendship would be replacing the structures with newer units.
The church was founded in 1862 by slaves who first worshipped in boxcars because they were not allowed to attend services with whites. They moved to their current location in 1879. Maynard Jackson Sr., the father of former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson Jr., was the church’s third pastor.
Boland said a church with a strong tie to the community is in a strong negotiating position. It can make its history part of the story, which signals to buyers that low-balling an offer would be insensitive and offensive.
Mount Vernon, which doesn’t have Friendship’s long history, is in an equally enviable spot, he said. It can demand to be treated as well as Friendship because if Mount Vernon does not sell, negotiations with Friendship — no matter how favorable — are moot.
And the nuclear option — using eminent domain to move either church — would be political suicide, he said. Reed has said he has no intention of forcing the churches to move.
“You have to be sensitive to the politics,” Boland said. “This is one of those situations that can become ticklish.”
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