News | Peachtree City

Agreement reached on Avenue cart path

Thu, 10/16/2008 - 8:18pm
By: John Munford

The owner of The Avenue shopping center has agreed in principle to sell a needed easement to Peachtree City for $14,420.

That figure was the amount originally suggested by the city based on an appraisal of the property. In recent days Cousins Properties countered with an offer five times the city's proposal.

But the issue was smoothed out at a meeting this afternoon between Cousins and city officials, City Manager Bernie McMullen announced Thursday night to the City Council.

The easement is necessary to connect a cart path from the bridge and tunnel system that spans the CSX Railroad on Ga. Highway 54 West. The proposed path will enter The Avenue near the Books-A-Million store.

Although the bridge and tunnels have been complete for months, the path connections have yet to be finished. The delay in large part has been due to problems with permits being evaluated by the contracting engineer for the Georgia Department of Transportation, officials reported.

The city expects this final easement to be in hand by next week, which will allow officials to proceed with sending drawings to the DOT for approval.

City officials have already acquired the two other easements necessary for construction: one from Ethan Allen and the other from Yard Time.

Once completed, the bridge and approach paths will allow golf carts and other pedestrians to use tunnels under Hwy. 54 to traverse over the railroad tracks and on both sides of the highway.

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Let's all just be a little cautious here-this is not a done deal
Submitted by PTCGOIL on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 10:39pm.

"Agreed in principle" is a good sign, but till the papers are signed, and I hope they will be, we can all continue to hope for the best for PTC AND for The Avenue.. Tman, we all know taxes are paid thru this shopping venue. How do you think the store owners reacted when they found out their landlord was in a position to actually be the cause of a loss of revenue for them? This would never have been a situation if Cousins had really considered that sometimes the corporate stance is so anti-customer, the added value they put on that land was not worth the potential harm to all involved. This is STILL a small town, but we have now been "injected" with two major highways that have literally split this town in all directions. I will still side with our local govt. employees who are now trying to do the best with what was left for them to clean up from past decisions made years ago. Some of those are no longer working in our local govt. and we NEED to be involved in matters that affect each of us.
I am SICK AND TIRED of looking at that "Bridge to Nowhere"(Ha)on 54 and want to use it before I die, so lets just take this good news and get this project finished! Let's just have a BIG ol' PTC party at The Avenue and all surrounding stores and restaurants when it's done!!!!!

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PTCGOIL,
Submitted by Tman on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 8:18am.

My dear I know exactly how the merchants felt, if you had read my post on the last article you would realize I am one of them! The counter by Cousins Properties was not an offer that they expected the city to take seriously. It was a ploy to get those that can make effective decisions with regard to their concerns with parking, lighting & fencing to the table while keeping the ball in play. They are a big company and have been dealing with city governments both large and small for a long time. I don’t always agree with them, I have suffered difficulties dealing with them, but when dealing with a very large organization their size sometimes complicates the process. As merchants we did express our concerns and as citizens we let them know where the tide of public opinion was going so that they could consider their options. Some of our best friends and supporters work through out this city’s government and we support what they are going through too. You should realize though, it’s easy to point the finger at people you know when you want to hold someone accountable for a given situation. However, when you take the time to look deeper you may find you are hurting someone who is actually on your side and the entity at fault is a much bigger Giant then you thought. When in doubt or even out of the loop so to speak, it is always better to take the high road and pray for discernment and reserve judgments for the Big Guy! Cousins has done many things for the community, they have also made some decisions leaning to the liberal side, (not a wise choice for this area, but in another?) trust me I know first hand just how imperfect their organization can be, but they are human and so are we. If you look at the whole picture you would realize that they are not the real hold up anyway, your real Giant is the DOT bureaucracy. Let’s all pray that the rest of this goes smoothly and we can move on and deal with more important issues!

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Answered prayer
Submitted by Tman on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 9:57pm.

God Rocks! We have been praying for a reasonable resolution and apparently it was reached. To those who suggested boycotting the Avenue merchants over this issue consider the fact that Cousins Properties pays a huge some of money into our tax base every year on the value of their property and the rents they collect. In addition the merchants pay a huge amount in taxes on the value of their property and the goods they sell! So when you boycott realize that you are robbing yourselves of the tax revenues needed to run your government, schools, rec. departments etc. We are happy that this was resolved quickly and we can move on. Thank goodness a boycott wasn’t necessary, no hard feelings; it’s all under Grace thank God!

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The State DOT
Submitted by Spyglass on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 8:58pm.

stinks. How complicated could these connections be? C'mon...we've built more cart paths here in the last year than the State EVER has.

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Wait till you see the "serpentine" path pattern that has to be
Submitted by PTCGOIL on Thu, 10/16/2008 - 10:46pm.

be created to comply for the approaches to these tunnels on 54 and the new tunnel at 74 and Pascall Rd!!! If it ever snows, we can have the best bobsled runs in the South! Yippeeee!!!!!

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