Welcome, JLB
At a recent meeting, the Sandy Springs City Council approved two measures that will provide a great long-term benefit to the city and our residents.
The JLB Partners/Core Properties “Gateway” project is a $100 million mixed-use project that removes two of the city’s oldest apartment complexes along Roswell Road and replaces them with high-quality housing and commercial uses. Revitalization of our older apartment communities has been a council priority for some time.
The Gateway project was announced last summer. Over many months, the folks at JLB and Core met with city staff as well as residents of surrounding neighborhoods. They heard concerns about density and height and made numerous modifications to their plans. They agreed to conditions ensuring the needed buffers, lighting and noise mitigation.
We know they will produce a quality project that will inject new life in the area and provide benefits to the community. Sprouts, an organic grocery store, is one of the project’s tenants. In fact, it will be the chain’s first store in Georgia. The project also brings in a minimum of four new restaurants.
There is a tax benefit for the city. The two current apartment complexes add $11 million to the tax digest. The JLB project will add $100 million-plus, with our schools benefiting the most as they receive the largest portion of the property tax.
I think this project will produce a positive benefit for our schools. The development will feature one and two-bedroom apartments. We know that this type of housingattracts millennials and professionals.
As we push to attract more high-tech businesses to the city, we want to keep those employees as residents, too. A residual benefit: New, younger tenants should reduce the student populations at High Point Elementary, Ridgeview Middle and Riverwood High, thus reducing the current strain at each of those schools.
The project will also produce a positive impact through environmental and street improvements. The re-alignment of the Roswell Road/Windsor Parkway intersection will create a safer environment for commuters and pedestrians and improve the current stacking of cars along Windsor. Based on the proposed funding options, we hope $3.4 million of the $3.7 million needed for these road improvements will be paid through developers, not the taxpayer.
The environment also sees a benefit. The new construction will be built with better stormwater measures and will completely pull the development out of the stream buffer where it sits today. It increases green space well above what currently exists. Without this development, we would not see these environmental improvements.
We’ve long waited for the economy to turn and for developers to take notice of the opportunities that exist in Sandy Springs. The mayor and the council hope this will be the first in a series of great improvements throughout our city.
Welcome to the neighborhood, JLB.
Tibby DeJulio represents District 5 on the Sandy Springs City Council.
