It was not exactly the average meeting of the South Fulton Community Improvement District, at least from Fairburn’s perspective. The Aug. 17 meeting brought the announcement that Fairburn is annexing large parcels owned by CSX Railroad along Roosevelt Highway and Hodges and Excel properties along Oakley Industrial Boulevard.

Describing the city’s development goals for the near term future, Fairburn City Administrator Jim Williams said the city wanted to have a vibrant industrial park of at least 2,000 acres, along with approximately a million square feet of retail and commercial space and to redevelop the downtown area. One of those goals was met last year with the announcement of a major commercial venture on the east side of Ga. Highway 74 between Milam Road and Oakley Industrial. Williams used the CID setting to announce the city’s success in another goal area.

“I want to very proudly announce today is that we took a giant step forward in our goals and objectives this past week with the application for annexation of 468 acres of CSX property into the city and 556 acres of Hodges and Excel property into the city,” said Williams. “Those applications are in, we checked all the surveys and we’re notifying Fulton County this afternoon.”

Williams said the inclusion of those properties into the city will reap future benefits for both Fairburn and the Community Improvement District.

“We’re not doing very many annexations. We’ve had approximately 30 individual requests from people wanting to bring residential units in. Many of those we’re not going to be able to deal with. We wanted to focus on those properties that would significantly add to our goals for economic development. So (CSX and Hodges/Excel) was a major step forward for us,” Williams said. “All this is a prelude to the fact that Fairburn wants to be a very, very significant partner in the CID process. These properties over the years are going to generate tax revenues that will coming to Fairburn. But what I want you to understand is that those tax revenues are going to be focused in the area of the services and facilities the CID needs to expand.”

Also at the meeting, developer Jay Knight announced a commitment to construct a hotel on a portion of the 27 acres owned by Knight Group along the east side of of Hwy. 74 and immediately south of I-85. The remainder of the property will likely be portioned out to smaller retail developments rather than attempting to situate big box retailers on the site. Such a move should be more compatible with the 1,000 townhome Renaissance Southpark development currently under construction.

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