The razed and undeveloped tracts along some of the busiest streets in Smyrna are footprints the real estate economy left when it headed south four years ago.
Now, three of those tracts are stirring to life: The 14-acre Jonquil Village tract at the corner of Atlanta and Spring Roads; the 47-acre Belmont Hills at the corner of Windy Hill and Atlanta Roads, and the 48-acre Hickory Lake Apartments, near the corner of Windy Hill Road and South Cobb Drive.
All three are in various stages of sale and development. And a fourth, The Crossings, at the corner of South Cobb Drive and Concord Road, is farther along with a newly-build Kroger about to open. For Smyrna, which was criticized for buying land with taxpayer money to spur redevelopment, it’s a sign things are turning around.
If development moves forward on the various projects Max Bacon said that will shore up the city’s eroding tax base and there won’t be a millage rate increase on property taxes to offset values, which continue to decline. If the city sells Hickory Lake Apartments, even better: Taxpayers won't be on the hook for payments on the $15 million bond the city floated to buy the apartment complex for $9.5 million in 2010, plus more than $1 million to tear it down.
Of the properties at play, Hickory Lakes is the most iffy. The razing of the old apartments won't be finished until February. Although the city has been trying to market it for the past year, it's had interest from a few developers, but no solid offer. Late last year a group approached the city with a plan to build a charter school, Smyrna Academy of Excellence, on the property.
Monday the group will find out if it wins its bid for a $2.5 million state grant that would go towards funding the school and getting it approved by the Cobb County Board of Education. Pete DeBuys, vice president of real estate for Renova Partners, LLC, whose firm will be the master developer of the tract that would use the school as its anchor, said last week the group is working on a letter of intent to present to the city to show how it plans to secure the land for development.
Smyrna redevelopment coordinator Andrea Hall said the hope is that a Cobb County public elementary school being built on the Belmont Hills property would give a boost to Halpern Enterprises to follow through with it long-stalled plan for a mixed-use development on the property.
Branch Properties, which is under contract to buy Jonquil Village, though the deal isn’t complete, intends to go before the Smyrna City Council January 17, to discuss rezoning the property so it can build 80,000 square feet of commercial development and 250 apartments. Branch declined to comment on its plans.
Hall said the big difference between now and 12 months ago in trying to cultivate development in the city is that “now, at least developers are calling and talking about plans. They may still have difficulty getting financing, but at least they’re talking about it. A year ago they weren't even calling.”
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