The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shopping center proposal delayed
Developer seeks more time to submit plan for Sprayberry Crossing.
A proposal to revitalize an old shopping center in East Cobb has once again been put on hold.
Cobb County planning commissioners Tuesday granted a request from the developer to delay its request to redevelop the 17-acre Sprayberry Crossing shopping center.
Jason Ward, development manager with Atlantic Realty Partners, which is in talks to buy and transform the property, said the company wants to study different traffic signal options at Sandy Plains Road and Kinjac Drive and overall traffic movement on the property.
Ward said the project is set to go back before the Cobb County Planning Commission on April 6. Once the Planning Commission makes its recommendation, the case moves to the County Commission for consideration.
Atlantic Realty’s proposal calls for building 36,000 square feet of retail space that could include a grocer and 8,000 square feet of office space. It will also include residential units, including 125 senior living apartments, 44 purchasable townhomes and 125 traditional one- and two-bedroom apartments. It also features an area with a pavilion and performance venue.
The plan incorporates the existing Mayes Family Cemetery into the development. Ward said developers plan to heavily landscape the area surrounding the cemetery and provide parking spaces for friends and loved ones of people buried at the site.
A previous site plan included space for open air entertainment and food hall, and featured 178 traditional apartments, 122 senior-living apartments, 11,700 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of space for a grocery store, 20,000 square feet of retail space and 50 town homes.
Along with the reduction in the number of traditional apartments and office and retail space, the food hall and open air entertain space concepts have been removed from the plan, according to the developer’s website for the project. The height of the buildings has been reduced from five to three stories, Ward said.
“We’re hoping that change and that adjustment will get most people on board with this project,” he said.
Improving the Sprayberry Crossing property, which sits at the northeast corner of Sandy Plains and East Piedmont roads, has been a long-running campaign undertaken by East Cobb residents, most of whom are members of the Sprayberry Crossing Action group on Facebook. Dozens of residents in 2019 used-social media to share photos of themselves in front of vacant storefronts. The campaign resulted in more than 100 photos of people, some of whom held signs decrying the conditions.
The shopping center includes the two vacant buildings and space filled by several small tenants. The vacant buildings once housed a bowling alley and a grocery store.
The shopping center came under scrutiny in 2018 when a Cobb County judge ruled its owner must clean up the property or face a blight tax. It was the first property targeted under a July 2017 ordinance approved by the Cobb County Commission establishing the tax, which applies a sevenfold increase to the owners’ bill.
Cobb tax assessor records show the increase has been applied to the 2019 and 2020 property tax bills for the parcel housing the former bowling alley. Joe Glancy, an East Cobb resident who is an administrator of the Facebook group, said the building continues to be targeted by vandals.
Some signs of rebirth are occurring on areas adjacent to the shopping center. The former Burger King next to the shopping center has been demolished to make way for a Freddy’s Steakburgers restaurant, Glancy said.
Glancy said he hopes Atlantic Residential’s plans will include adequate greenspace, bike and walking paths “that will make it usable for the entire community.”
“It’s been over two decades that the community has lived with a neglected, vandalized, blighted property,” he said.