The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Wednesday, June 30, 1999
Fayetteville's `uptown' project `moving along'

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Plans for 200 homes, plus offices, shops, parks and a hotel on 110 acres near Fayetteville's Courthouse Square are moving along well, said Bob Rolader, who hopes to develop the property.

Rolader and experts from Integrated Science and Engineering, a firm that will help engineer the project, traveled to Memphis, Tenn. recently to visit Harbortown. “It's one of the premier examples around of a neo-traditional community,” Rolader told the Fayetteville Planning Commission during its work session last week.

Harbortown, he said, “had that sort of `Leave it to Beaver' look that we're looking for,” he said.

Consultants hired by the city to master-plan the site recommended the high-density, Charleston style community as a way to keep Fayetteville's downtown area vital, and designers are now looking for the best innovations in street scape and neighborhood planning to create an upscale, in-town atmosphere.

Rolader said he is currently talking with a leading national builder who is interested in the project, while designers begin to fine-tune the overall concept.

The property, at Ga. Highway 54 and Tiger Trail, has been in the family of its most recent owner King McElwaney for more than 100 years. It became the subject of intense scrutiny last year when city staff and the Planning Commission conducted a thorough review of the city's comprehensive plan.

Planning staff discovered that there are only two large single-owner tracts left in Fayetteville, the McElwaney property and a 175-acre parcel south of town on Jimmy Mayfield Boulevard.

After a series of public hearings and work sessions, City Council decided to hire consultants to develop master plans for the two parcels.

“I'm glad to see the McElwaney property going that way,” said Planning Commission Chairman Bill Talley, “because that is going to be a real exciting project.”

Rolader said build-out of the project will probably take five to ten years.

 


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