City leaders see it as a chance to clean the slate and start over: out with the old, in with the new.
But critics have another word for Smyrna's buying a run-down, crime-ridden apartment complex at the northeast corner of town: boondoggle.
In his state of the city address last week, Smyrna Mayor Max Bacon praised the $9.5 million purchase last year of the Hickory Lake Apartments complex on Windy Hill Road. The city plans to spend another $4 million to tear it down and sell it to a developer.
Bacon said Smyrna had "one shot" at the 48-acre property which is a gateway to the city and couldn't afford to pass it up. But seven months after the purchase which the city funded by issuing $15 million in bonds, critics say all it has to show is a tract of 726 vacated apartments behind padlocked fences on a shabby stretch of road.
Bulldozers are supposed to start rolling in September. The rumble you hear now is a small but loud knot of residents fuming and fulminating in an election season about what they claim is the city’s improper and ill-conceived plunge into a bad real estate market.
“To me, I find it criminal what has happened,” said Alex Backry, a longtime Smyrna firebrand and one of the plan’s harshest critics. Backry is running for mayor for the third time, having lost to long-time incumbent Bacon in 2007. He’s flogging Hickory Lake as the latest example of Smyrna leadership run amok.
“This is simply gambling with taxpayers’ money,” he said. "People are furious."
Smyrna redevelopment coordinator Andrea Hall last week defended the purchase. She said the city just about can't lose on the deal. It bought the tract for $5 million less than the asking price and the apartments standing vacant have already cured the crime problem.
"We removed 726 aging apartments that ultimately will be replaced with something of good for the entire community," Hall said. The city in May hired a firm to market the property for $17.5 million.
“If we get our money back, obviously we would be thrilled,” said Hall. “But we’re not going to sell at any price to the wrong developer. We don’t want to get development that’s not right for that location.”
Hall said the Hickory Lake purchase, located near the corner of Windy Hill and South Cobb Drive, is the fourth piece in the city’s quadrant redevelopment strategy. Each of the city’s four major intersections now has a large project proposed or under construction.
The Crossings is under construction at the corner of South Cobb Drive and Concord Road. Two tax allocation district projects -- Belmont Hills at Windy Hill and Atlanta Road, and Jonquil Village at Atlanta and Spring Road -- have been approved, “but are on hold due to economic conditions,” Hall said.
Critics said tearing down Hickory Lake means the property will just join Belmont and Jonquil as another fenced-off eyesore that will go undeveloped until the real estate market rebounds. And no one knows when that will be in a city where real estate values have taken a hit over the last five years ago.
“We can’t even get anybody to develop on the good end of Smyrna by Vinings,” resident Mary Kirkendall said. “How do they expect somebody to develop on the bad end of Smyrna on a road with run-down apartments and trailer parks?”
Critics cite Smyrna Commons as another ill-advised real estate venture by the city that foreshadows what could happen if the Hickory Lake deal sours. The city issued an $8.2 million bond to buy the 9.6-acre property off Ward Street in 2008. It has agreed to sell about 7.5 acres of it to Cobb County School District for $2.9 million to build a school and then keep the rest for a road right-of-way.
“That’s $5 million loss,” said Backry, who plans to confront the mayor and city council about the real estate deals at Monday night’s city council meeting. He promises the issue will be “hot.”
In his state of the city address last week, Bacon generally praised the city's fiscal health. Smyrna didn’t raise property taxes, close facilities, tap reserves or lay off or furlough employees, he said. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s both improved the city’s bond rating after the Hickory Lake purchase.
“That’s something that’s totally unheard of,” Bacon said.
Ernie Williams, senior vice president for NAI Brannen Goddard, which is marketing the Hickory Lake property and will collect a 5 percent commission on its sale, said last week “several interested parties” are talking about buying and developing the tract, but he declined to identify them.
Asked if Hickory Lake will sell for the asking price, Williams replied in an email, “We believe that for the right use and the right incentives that a favorable outcome can be achieved.”
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