Kennesaw green space deal likely

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday, November 29, 2008 by Dan Chapman, AJC staff writer

By year’s end, the city of Kennesaw’s oft-delayed development plans should edge closer to reality. Controversy, though, will continue to dog many of the projects. And the souring economy will also add to Kennesaw’s development woes.

“We’ve had our ups and downs. This past year has been very challenging for both the private sector and (local) governments,” said Bob Fox, the town’s community development director. “Everyone is waiting to see what happens with the economy.”

Fox said recently that he expects a deal to be worked out soon between the city, Cobb County and the owner of a 9.85-acre tract downtown.

Kennesaw had planned to build shops, condos and a parking deck on much of the forested land. Green space advocates prefer parkland. Compromise is likely. The site, behind City Hall, served as a Civil War training ground for Confederate soldiers. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also one of the top 10 properties targeted for acquisition and preservation by the county’s park advisory committee.

Flush with another $40 million parks’ bond approved by county voters earlier this month, Cobb could easily handle the $1.3 million asking price. But Kennesaw, with a population of 32,000 and a city budget of $23.1 million this fiscal year, has long coveted the land as a key piece of its downtown redevelopment puzzle. City and county officials have met repeatedly in recent weeks to iron out a compromise, perhaps setting aside two-thirds of the property as green space.

“There isn’t a 100 percent resolution, but we’re extremely close,” said Sam Olens, who chairs the Cobb County Commission and declined to offer details. “The accommodation is very much in favor of preservation of the property.”

Olens took a decidedly less diplomatic view of Kennesaw’s development of a 34-acre tract along North Cobb Parkway. The Columns, at the intersection of Kennesaw Due West Road, fashions itself a “walkable lifestyle center with the look and feel of a European style village,” according to the company’s Web site.

The Kennesaw Development Authority issued $12 million in bonds last year to help jump-start McGuire Realty’s proposed $100 million retail, office and hotel park. The so-called payment-in-lieu-of taxes bonds will be paid off over 25-30 years with tax money that would’ve gone to Cobb County, its school system and others.

“If Kennesaw seeks to do a redevelopment project with their millage that should be between them and their residents – the school system and the county millage should not be used without their respective governments’ consent,” said Olens. “We were totally in the dark, as was the school system.”

The county is requesting state legislators amend Georgia law to require that all affected governments approve those types of bonds before they’re issued. Kennesaw’s Fox defended the tax break.

“It allowed that project to be developed where it wouldn’t be developed otherwise,” he said. “It will allow that project to be a catalyst for development up and down Cobb Parkway.”

Fox listed a slew of other developments moving closer to fruition including light industrial, retail and road-building projects along Jiles Road; privately financed student housing downtown with as many as 700 beds for Kennesaw State University students; and construction, set to begin early next year, on a plaza and a pedestrian underpass below the train tracks that run through downtown.