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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