Whether more than 200 acres of land on the Chattahoochee River will remain a park is in the hands of the United Methodist Church.
Gwinnett County on Tuesday made a $14 million offer to buy the land, known as Simpsonwood. The city of Peachtree Corners plans to add more money to the deal, if the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church accepts the county’s offer.
But, by the end of the day Wednesday, neither a church spokeswoman nor an attorney had returned several phone calls seeking comment. In an email, spokeswoman Sybil Davidson said she did not “have any update or information” about the property.
Gwinnett Commissioner Lynette Howard, who represents the area, said she was “pretty confident” the deal would go through. County spokesman Joe Sorenson said late Wednesday that the county and the church were “between correspondence,” and he did not know if the offer had been accepted.
The church has owned the land for more than 40 years. Norcross teacher Ludie Simpson gave Simpsonwood to the church in 1973 with understanding that it would not be “chopped into smaller parcels or exploited or despoiled.”
But Davidson has said upkeep of an under-utilized conference center on the property has cost the church as much as $750,000 annually for more than a decade. The church has been trying to sell Simpsonwood for several years.
Previous negotiations with the county stalled because of the unclear title, and the question of whether Simpsonwood could even be sold. Neighbors sued to stop the church from doing so, but a Gwinnett County judge granted permission earlier this year for the church to sell the property, including to possible developers.
Prior to a church meeting last month where voting members decided to sell the land, an attorney for the church contacted Peachtree Corners Mayor Mike Mason, the mayor said, and asked if he could enhance Gwinnett’s offer. Mason would not say how much Peachtree Corners was offering, because the matter is still not public, but said the city’s offer was contingent on the church accepting the county’s.
“The Simpsonwood retreat has been kind of a refuge for the lifetime of most of the citizens here,” Mason said. “The support is overwhelming. So far, no one has come to me and said, ‘You’ve made a bad choice.’”
Not all agree, though, that public money should be used to preserve the property. Commissioner John Heard, who voted against the county purchase, said he disagreed with the fact that the property was for sale at all, considering Simpson’s conditions.
“I think it’s appropriate that it be preserved, but I don’t think it’s the county’s responsibility to preserve it,” he said.
Both Howard and Mason said it is important to the character of the area that the land remains a passive park. Gwinnett will pay for the purchase with revenue from a penny sales tax, while Peachtree Corners has the money it in its coffers.
Scott Hilton, president of the United Peachtree Corners Civic Association, said if the county buys the land, it will be a “fantastic” result for his group. Hilton called Simpsonwood the crown jewel of Peachtree Corners and said he is proud of leaders for their continued efforts to buy it as a park, even as developers made higher offers.
“When we rallied together as a community and made our wishes known, look how impactful that is,” he said. “It will be a big victory for our area.”
Even though developers were interested, much of the property itself could not be built on, said Lila Hunter, a lay representative at Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church who attended the North Georgia Conference’s meeting last month.
Hunter said she preferred the land be purchased by a public entity, but would have guessed Simpsonwood was worth more than the county offered because of its riverfront land.
The church is in a “substantial amount of debt because of the property,” Hunter said, and while she would like to see that debt eliminated, she said it was only earlier this year — when negotiations with public entities had stalled — that the church considered selling to developers.
“I think the church has been painted a little unfavorably,” she said. “I can’t over emphasize that the church was trying to do the right thing all along.”
