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PTC Westside road sales dead for this yearTue, 12/04/2007 - 5:02pm
By: Cal Beverly
Chances for any 'big box' development next to Planterra Ridge subdivision appear diminished with 2 opponents coming on PTC Council in January The controversial westside Peachtree City road sale to a developer is dead for this year. “The request to abandon Line Creek Circle and a portion of Line Creek Drive has been removed from the agenda and is not expected to come before [the Peachtree City] Council until the Jan. 17, 2008, meeting,” according to an email Wednesday afternoon from the city’s public information officer, Betsy Tyler. Two new council members — both opponents of the proposed sale of two city streets — will have been sworn in by that time, possibly dooming developer Doug McMurrain’s long quest to build a “big box” type of store next to Planterra Ridge subdivision in the city’s West Village. Both councilmen-elect Don Haddix and Doug Sturbaum campaigned against any new big-box store on the city's west side and against the sale of city land to a developer to facilitate a commercial project. Up until the withdrawal of the item from Thursday night’s agenda, the council was scheduled for at least the third time to consider the possibility of abandoning two streets in the West Village so they could be sold to a developer planning a big-box shopping center at the southwest corner of Ga. Highway 54 West and Planterra Way. Just this past Tuesday afternoon, developer Doug McMurrain had unveiled a site plan for the shopping center that had the largest store at 42,000 square feet, which is still considered a big-box store under city ordinance. The other stores would include one at 28,000 feet and two at 25,000 feet, McMurrain said. All told the shopping center would total about 172,000 to 175,000 square feet, which would also trigger the city’s big-box limit of 150,000 square feet for shopping centers. That plan is now dead for this year. McMurrain of Capital City Development said Tuesday he was courting an upscale grocery company for the larger building. Only about 20,000 square feet would be used for smaller shops, in part due to vacancies in the city’s current retail market and also a planned competitor just down the road inside Peachtree City, McMurrain said. Until the item was removed from the agenda, the council was expected to consider voting only on the road abandonment issue and not the road sale during the meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall. Still, City Attorney Ted Meeker has said that should the city abandon Line Creek Drive and Line Creek Court, developer McMurrain could advance an argument in court that he should be allowed to purchase the property. McMurrain, who initially sought to buy the roads to make room for a 95,000-square-foot Kohl’s Department Store, needed the roads at first because the city’s setback regulations wouldn’t allow for the Kohl’s footprint to fit on the site. McMurrain later said all big-box proposals for the site were off the table, but he also said at a previous council meeting that some retailers desired by city residents, such as Whole Foods, don’t do any buildings smaller than big boxes. McMurrain has offered to pay appraised value for the roads, which he thinks would equal roughly $700,000. Should McMurrain proceed with the big-box proposal in the new year before a new council, Capital City would be the first company to go through the city’s new process for evaluating big-box stores, which replaced the city’s previous outright ban on such regional stores and shopping centers. Under the new big-box ordinance, developers have to provide traffic studies and other facts to the City Council in an application, and the council ultimately votes whether to approve or deny the project. A committee appointed by Mayor Harold Logsdon recently asked McMurrain to prepare a site plan that doesn’t include a large anchor tenant but assumes the roads would be abandoned. On that committee were council members Steve Boone and Cyndi Plunkett, Marty Mullin from the planning commission, citizens Lynda Wojcik and Tim Lydell and City Planner David Rast. Unless council somehow places stipulations on the road abandonment or purchase, it is possible McMurrain could seek a special council approval for big box stores, defined under city ordinance as those larger than 32,000 square feet in size. Numerous residents have spoken out against big box stores because they tend to have regional draws, creating traffic problems in addition to creating other issues. The site is currently zoned commercial and is bordered to the east by Planterra Way. McMurrain said recently that he needs to acquire the roads in order to be flexible with the site plan for the shopping center. The development, McMurrain said, would include outdoor seating areas and raised crosswalks and fountains similar to the previous proposal for the site that included the Kohl’s Department Store. The plan also includes the same type of parking ratios, meeting the city’s minimum parking spaces with four spaces for each 1,000 square feet of retail space, McMurrain said. McMurrain said the property’s potential name has been changed to “The Columns at Peachtree City,” in part because columns are one of the architectural features proposed for the development. — Reporting by John Munford. Story updated Dec. 5, 2007, 10 p.m. login to post comments
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