Developer Trammell Crow Residential has removed much of the concrete, asphalt and miscellaneous materials behind the abandoned Peachtree Credit Union Bank in Avondale Estates, while also planting grass and laying straw. This is the same developer that’s begun work on Alexan Gateway several blocks west, a 4.3-acre site that will include 270 apartments and 7,100 square feet of retail.
Clearing the roughly two acres behind the Credit Union is part of an agreement Trammell Crow made with the city when the Alexan project was approved last year by Avondale’s Board of Mayor and Commissioners. Weeks before that approval Avondale resident John Pomberg filed an ethics complaint against the five-person board saying that agreement violated Georgia’s Open Meeting Law.
But during an August 20 probable hearing the city’s ethics board quickly dismissed the complaint, concluding, “The complaint doesn’t set forth sufficient facts to constitute an alleged violation.”
This site in question is part of five acres owned by the city and slated for a future mixed-use development.
Avondale is currently trying to determine what firm or firms will design and construct the project, and how much money it will have to borrow, a process that, City Manager Patrick Bryant has said, could take most of this year.
Preliminary plans for the five acres, which the city closed on last year, include two retail/restaurant buildings fronting North Avondale Road and, behind them, a “town green,” that’s essentially the site now getting cleared by Trammell Crow.
“This was a service donated, so that much of the cost [for the city] has been taken out,” said Sam Collier, interim executive director of Avondale Estates’ Downtown Development Authority. “That grading had to be done sometime. Plus, we can now consider it a passive park in a few months when we can walk on it.”
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