To make way for TDK Boulevard’s extension into Coweta County, it cost the Peachtree City Airport Authority $1.41 million to acquire two golf holes and additional land for its runway safety area.

The deal also paves the way for the construction of the two-lane road across Line Creek into currently undeveloped Coweta County, as the airport plans to quit-claim the needed property to the city, according to John Crosby, aviation director for Falcon Field.

In addition, Pathway Communities, the city’s original developer, got some concessions, including new access to a future lakefront but otherwise landlocked parcel.

Other concessions to the developer included a promise by Mayor Harold Logsdon that the city will examine changing the current industrial land use of a parcel next to Line Creek, and a statement from the airport authority that it would not be seeking a longer runway or jet passenger service at Falcon Field.

The payments in the five-part real estate closing were being made starting Monday morning, according to authority attorney Doug Warner.

Falcon Field had received a $2 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to purchase the land so it could purchase the runway safety area to control it, Crosby said. The airport also got a $50,000 grant from the state for the transaction, he added.

Of the $1.41 million total spent on the land acquisition, Sequoia Golf, owner of the Planterra Ridge Golf Club, was paid $1.15 million for 20.64 acres plus an additional $465,000 to pay for the relocation of the golf holes. The cost for relocating the golf holes includes a fixed $50,000 for any construction contingencies, Crosby said.

Also included in the deal is a $38,000 cost in case the city doesn’t let the golf course burn off debris, requiring it to be hauled off instead, but the airport would get that money back if the burning is approved by the city, Crosby noted.

The airport also paid two subsidiaries of Pathway Communities a total of $261,646 for 4.86 acres of land in two separate tracts.

The land in the area was appraised by the authority for about $48,000 an acre, Crosby said. The authority paid slightly more than that for the Pathway land, which netted in the high $53,000 per acre range in each of the two separate transactions, Crosby said. The Sequoia land transaction netted $55,000 an acre.

Pathway was initially seeking $110,000 an acre, but it also got some considerations in the final outcome of the deal, which includes a separate parcel transaction with Sequoia Golf that allows Pathway to gain access to the proposed road path for TDK Boulevard; without that the Pathway parcel is land-locked. Pathway also got a small 30-foot easement from the airport so it could access the TDK road path.

Also as part of the deal, Pathway negotiated a memorandum of understanding signed by city officials who committed to looking at changing the land use of the Pathway land-locked tract that will border the future Lake McIntosh reservoir.

That memorandum of understanding, which does not commit to changing the land use designation from its current status as industrial use, was signed by City Manager Bernie McMullen and also by Mayor Harold Logsdon.

“... The city acknowledges its intention to review its land use plan to determine the potential uses of the remaining land in light of the airport expansion,” the memo states. “The city further commits to devote the resources necessary to such a review, and commits not to assess a fee to PCH (Peachtree City Holdings) for this review. No promise, express or implied, has been made by the city to amend its land use plan in connection with this Memorandum of Understanding.”

The City Council did not vote to approve or deny the memorandum of understanding, according to city spokesperson Betsy Tyler.

Pathway also got an easement from the airport authority to be able to travel along the former road path for TDK Boulevard up to 24 times a year to maintain property it owns on the other side of the airport; that easement will become void after TDK is built or until another way of accessing that parcel is provided by the airport, officials said.

Although Fayette County quit-claimed most of that path back to the airport, a small portion of it went back to a Pathway-owned parcel at the company’s insistence, officials said.

In a letter authorized by the Airport Authority and requested by Pathway Communities, authority chairman Jerry Cobb indicated there were no plans by the authority to have scheduled passenger service nor to extend the runway to 6,000 feet for takeoffs, both of which would mean far larger aircraft would be landing at Falcon Field with perhaps a greater number of takeoffs and landings.

Crosby has also said previously that the airport’s pavement is not strong enough to handle large jets.

Crosby said the Federal Aviation Administration, which provided the main grant, worked very closely with officials on the issue, particularly during a key time in the negotiations. City representatives including City Manager McMullen and Mayor Logsdon were also involved in some of the negotiating sessions, officials noted.

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