Long after a
Neighborhood Planning Unit B Zoning Committee meeting cleared of a crowd of
residents and media interested in only the Randolph-Lucas House discussion and
the other six cases on the agenda were voted on, one attorney remained with
another new appeal for approval of a commercial mixed-use development off
Piedmont Road in the Lindbergh area.
Attorney Stephen
Rothman, of Wilson Brock & Irby LLC, has been before committees of NPU-B,
as well as the full board, representing Jeff Fuqua and The Sembler Co. possibly
a dozen times since last summer attempting unsuccessfully to gain approval for
their plans for this development.
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| NPU-B Zoning Committee listens Tuesday night as attorney Stephen Rothman describes the latest changes made to the plans for a mixed-use development proposed for the Lindbergh area off Piedmont Road. |
Tuesday night’s
attempt before the NPU-B Zoning Committee resulted in another rejection.
The issue involves the
developer’s attempts to get approval to change the land use element of the CDP
to re-designate property bounded by Lindberg Drive, Piedmont Road, Morosgo
Drive and Adina Drive from high-density residential land use designation to a
high-density mixed-use land use designation.
The sticking point has
been that Sembler first talked about putting a food supermarket in the
development, which the NPU believes is needed in that location. However, the
plan was later changed to a “big box” Wal-Mart super store containing a food
market. The NPU has rejected the big box concept from the beginning.
The NPU’s Zoning
Committee, Development & Transportation Committee and the full board in, meetings since last August as well as private
discussion sessions, have said over and over again they want to see a
development at the site with a grocery store, but have repeatedly asked for
changes that the developers have brought to the table.
On Tuesday night, NPU-B Board chair Sally
Silver, who also works with Dist 7 City Councilman Howard Shook on development
issues in his district, said she saw the latest iteration of the plan Rothman
was presenting to the Zoning Committee for the first time that morning.
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| NPU-B Zoning Committee members review the latest changes in plans for a proposed mixed-use development for the Lindbergh area off Piedmont Road that were submitted Tuesday night by Sembler and Jeff Fuqua. |
Silver pointed out
that the NPU has denied the developer’s requested change to the Comprehensive
Development Plan (CDP) but the developer has continued to meet with the city’s
Planning Department.
Silver said the plan
gets tweaked a little every time, but not changed the way the NPU has
requested. Stating she cannot support this latest plan, Silver added, “Sure
things get addressed, but not everything gets addressed.”
For instance, while
the developers have now added a 3-acre park into the project, they have not
elimated the “big box” and have not addressed the large surface parking area. The
developers now have added 240 residential apartment units in a three-story,
240,000-square-foot building.
She said that when the
Special Public Interest district was formed for the Lindbergh area, and the CDP
was altered to allow for mixed-use developments in the area, everyone wanted to
see a grocery store located there, but no one wanted another “big box” such as
a typical Wal-Mart.
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| Attorney Stephen Rothman points to the residential component of the new mixed-use development plans as Zoning Committee members listen. The orange area on the top left of the plans being shown is the big box that the NPU-B members have objected to all along. |
The developers have contended
that they tried to sell the stand-alone grocery store concept to operators such
as Publix, but they were unable to generate any interest. They claim those
operators say there would not be enough shopping traffic to sustain such a
grocery store. Thus they turned to a client such as Wal-Mart for a larger
multi-department anchor store.
The committee members
suggested that one of the new, smaller Wal-Mart local grocery stores might well
be acceptable, but that the typical Wal-Mart, which would include a grocery
area, is not acceptable. The plan presented Tuesday night still included a 150,000-square-foot
anchor store, which everyone understood would likely be a Wal-Mart.
Among the sentiments
expressed by committee members were:
“We are looking at
being forward thinking….We are 100 percent behind urban design, but this is not
good urban design.”
“There is no reason
for this area to get short-shrift when other areas don’t.”
“If the T-SPLOST
passes July 31, this could become a prime residential area for teachers,
students and such (with the proposed rail line extension from Lindbergh to
Emory University) that would support a good stand-along grocery store.”
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| Developer Jeff Fuqua attended an NPU-B board meeting in April at which the development plans were discussed and then rejected by the NPU because it included a big box store. |
Prior to Tuesday
night, the last time Sembler and Jeff Fuqua, who by then had left Sembler as
its local president, appeared before NPU-B was April 4 before the full board
and March 27 before the Zoning and Development & Transportation committees.
That also resulted in an ill-fated bid to get the NPU’s approval of a land use
amendment to the CDP.
Silver and other
members of the board again expressed their desire to see this project done. “But
this isn’t a good option,” Silver stated as she moved for denial, which was
passed by the committee.
Silver then turned to
Rothman and urged him to return to the full NPU-B board meeting in one week on
July 3 with Jeff Fuqua and the representative of the “big box” operator the
developer is talking with so that the board can clearly define what is
acceptable and can discuss with the store operator why it needs to consider a
stand-along grocery store only.
Rothman seemed to
understand the request, but did not make any promises.
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