As metro Atlanta boomed and sprawled over the last four decades, south Cobb County has always been convenient to just about everything -- except prosperity.
Tuesday night in a town hall meeting in Mableton about 200 residents and Cobb officials gathered to air their frustration and hear another plan for a turnaround.
Without any new cash, and in the middle of recession, Cobb is trying to pull off a resurrection of a region that defied its best efforts in the best of times.
“As far as we’re concerned there’s no down side to this,” Dana Johnson, Cobb Community Development Planning Division Manager, said before the meeting. “Almost none of the projects need funding, and the ones that do get money from a SPLOST already approved by voters.”
Formally known as the South Cobb Implementation Strategy, the plan focuses on redevelopment in three areas about four miles apart: Mableton; the River Line area along the Chattahoochee River; and the Six Flags Drive area.
Rather than feature a single centerpiece, it includes a variety of short-term projects such as park and road improvements already on the current local sales tax project list, along with long-term goals like tearing down old apartments along Six Flags Drive, which will require federal dollars.
A newly re-formed and expanded South Cobb Redevelopment Authority is pushing the effort.
The projects affect Cobb’s most diverse area. About 70 percent of the 8,307 people living in the south Cobb area are black, 13 percent are white and 20 percent are Hispanic, according to a United Way study this year.
In Mableton, which is unincorporated, about half the 33,466 residents are white, 38 percent are black and 14 percent are Hispanic, according to Census data. Median income is $41,000 in South Cobb and $58,000 in Mablteton, compared to $63,000 for the county.
Cobb leaders call the area “the gateway to Atlanta.” With its declining aesthetics, high crime and lack of amenities, residents have another name -- “stepchild of the county.” Over the years they’ve grown increasingly skeptical anything will change.
“I’ve heard a lot of what is going to happen, what is going to be developed, and when it’s going to be developed,” said a woman at the meeting who spoke without giving her name. “But what I want to know is, are there a lot of solid programs that I will be able to see?”
Commissioner Woody Thompson, who represents the area, pointed to the rebuilding of Mableton Elementary as an indication of things to come. He said the county will coordinate federal funding and SPLOST money for dozens of projects.
Thompson led reporters on a tour and pointed out the improvements he’s backed as a commissioner in recent years -- an amphitheater, library and aquatics center in Mableton and industrial park near Six Flags. He also noted the view of downtown Atlanta from various vantage points.
“Sometimes when the sun is gleaming off the buildings downtown, its looks like Oz,” he said. By contrast, the apartments built 40 years ago and ‘50s-era homes along Factory Shoals Road look “a little tired,” he said.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, whose family still operates a Mableton hardware store, has been one of area’s biggest boosters. A few years ago the Atlanta Regional Commission named Mableton as a “Lifelong Community,” with special zoning and planning to steer redevelopment.
Mableton is the most likely part of the area to draw redevelopment because of the work already being done there, said Scott Amoson, director of research for commercial real estate firm Colliers International. River Line area redevelopment could be stifled because of its proximity to the Fulton Industrial district, he said, and old apartments in the Six Flags area would need to be torn down to make that area attractive.
Keyes said the Cobb effort has precedent. The cities of Decatur and McDonough have gone through similar town refurbishments with the help of ARC. A down economy, she said, has its advantages .
“Without the pressure of development, people have input before it’s too late,” she said.
The county is partnering with nonprofit groups including the United Way, and businesses such as Six Flags. The amusement park draw more than 1 million visitors a year and employs hundreds in-season, but a perception of crime in the area has been an issue in recent years.
Cobb police and the park have stepped up security, adding more lights outside the park, and more neighborhood patrols. Precinct 2, which encompasses the entire redevelopment area, has the greatest concentration of officers in the county, precinct Capt. J.D. Adcock said.
Six Flags improvements in the plan include a community activity center along Six Flags Drive, including a mixed-use town center. Along the River Line, the redevelopment has started with a planned $300 million mixed-use development by Jamestown Properties.
The plan has detractors, several who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting.
Roads are inadequate, they said, and the county seemed to be turning on the heavy industry in the area that generates more tax revenue than proposed coffee shops and restaurants would.
“How do we know that these new businesses aren’t going to move in with all their beauty and start belly-aching” about the ugly businesses next door, said John Stamps, who runs Stamps Sand Company.
Darhyl Watkins, a 25-year south Cobb area resident and Redevelopment Authority member, said the effort is worth trying.
“You almost don’t have a choice. If we don’t do something we will be paying . . . for generations to come,” said Watkins. “I don’t think of this as just a south Cobb issue, but a Cobb County and metro Atlanta issue. As we get better, metro Atlanta gets better.”
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