Owners of drag strip, properties near new plant are racing to sell

With construction of a multibillion-dollar battery factory underway in North Georgia, the Atlanta Dragway and other property owners near the site anticipate developers will soon race to snap up land.

South Korea’s SK Innova- tion is constructing a $2.6 billion plant on I-85 to make batteries for electric vehicles. Local officials expect SK’s suppliers will want to build facil- ities nearby, but there’s a lim- ited amount of available land.

The Atlanta Dragway, a 318acre site owned by the National Hot Rod Association, is one of the properties for sale.

The pandemic forced the NHRA and NASCAR to cancel events and limit attendance in 2020, but the leagues plan to resume events with limited attendance. The Atlanta Drag- way hosts the NHRA’s Southern Nationals event March 26-28.

Other racetrack owners have expressed interest in the Atlanta Dragway to main- tain it as a racing venue, said Jamie Smithson, senior direc- tor at JLL Capital Markets, a brokerage representing the track’s owner.

“We are going to market this based on what the Banks County community wants to see there, and we are going to let the market dictate how it’s used,” Smithson said.

At least four other large sites nearby are angling for buyers.

When the plant opens, the area will need more housing and retail for new employees expected to move in, said Charles Turk, chairman of the Banks County Commission.

The racetrack property is large enough it could contain a mix of an industrial park, housing and shopping centers, Smithson said. Banks County lacks a supermarket, and many residents want one.

“The issue is that there aren’t a lot of industrial sites remaining that have sewer lines already in place with adequate capacity” to handle heavy users, said Jack Haden, an industrial real estate specialist at NAI Brannen Goddard.

Haden is representing Florida developer Joshua Schrager, who plans two industrial facilities on a 214-acre site near the battery plant.