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"fM 'FfVRfNf/02006-. www.IMimodemworld.cofn
Were old Wal-Marts go to die: redevelopment of empty "big boxes" in the all-but-dead Perimeter Square shopping center was
one goal of a last-ditch effort by some ACC Commissioners to adjust plans for the Jennings Mill Parkway.
Jennings Mill
Commission Moves Forward
Rejecting a last-minute proposal to substi
tute a two-lane road for a new four-lane road
parallel to Atlanta Highway, ACC Commissioners
voted at their Mar. 7 meeting to go ahead
with long-standing plans for the first phase of
Jennings Mill Parkway. Business owners along
Commerce Boulevard have been pressing com
missioners to go ahead with the plan, saying
their employees and customers have difficulty
turning left onto Atlanta Highway. The new road,
four lanes wide with a center median, will pro
vide an alternate route, connecting New Jimmie
Daniel Road to the dead end of Commerce
Boulevard by early 2008, and several years later
to the now-closed Wal-Mart at Perimeter Square
shopping center.
But Commissioner Carl Jordan suggested the
county could afford to go ahead and build the
road all the way to Perimeter Square (and still
save Si.3 million)—if it were only two lanes
wide instead of four. More lanes could be added
later if they are needed, he
said, but the county's traffic
estimates suggest that two
lanes would be adequate,
and building the entire road
could hasten the redevelop
ment of Perimeter Square.
That shopping center is 85 percent vacant.
Realtor Jamie Boswell told commissioners at the
start of the meeting.
But most commissioners had not heard of
Jordan's proposal until the meeting, and under
pressure from the business owners to move for
ward, voted 7-3 to go ahead with four lanes as
planned. "I didn't know a thing about this alter
nate proposal," said Commissioner Kathy Hoard,
adding that details were sketchy and a two-lane
road might not be sufficient to support a large
retailer. Commissioner David Lynn also nixed the
proposal. '1 struggled with that one," he told
Flagpole later. "A lot of my reservation about the
whole project initially is that it took so much
money away from any other form of transporta
tion," he said, but he was reassured by a memo
from county staffers saying money could be
found elsewhere for bike or pedestrian projects.
Beyond the old Wal-Mart, the fate of the new
road is less certain—it was planned to swing
southward into Oconee County, crossing the
bypass and coming out at Lowe's near Highway
316. But since the new road is not a state or fed
eral highway, it must be built with local money,
and ACC Commissioners do not seem to consider
further sections of it a priority.
John Huie jphuie@speedfactorynet
More Commish Notes
A Roundabout and a Bridge
At their Mar. 7 meeting, ACC Commissioners
ordered a traffic study of the rural portion of
Barnett Shoals Road near Old Lexington Road.
The fast-developing area
is "almost wilderness" for
Athens-Clarke County, and
presents something close to
a "country road," resident Jo
Blase told commissioners.
Many residents fear that a
planned traffic light at Old Lexington Road only
foreshadows more congestion. Commissioners
decided on the stoplight last month, but many
residents felt a "roundabout" traffic circle would
have been a better solution.
"Since that time, there's been a lot of interest
in this issue," said Commissioner Tom Chasteen,
who made the rare move to reconsider the stop
light. "There's going to be a lot more houses
on that corridor." A neighborhood meeting on
the road's future attracted over 150 people.
Commissioner Carl Jordan said. "They consider
this to be an extremely important gateway," he
said, but "what I didn't hear was any unanimity"
about solutions.
Although he insisted he's no traffic engineer.
Commissioner States McCarter said a roundabout
"just flat would not work at that location."
Residents, he said, "believe this traffic study
is going to solve their problem, and it is not."
Staff in the ACC Transportation and Public Works
Department reported that roundabouts are safer
than stoplights, but said Georgia drivers would
need an "extensive educational campaign"
because they aren't accustomed to them. ACC
Deputy Manager Bob Snipes told Flagpole the
upcoming study will identify potential problem
intersections along Barnett Shoals and Old
Lexington roads, and propose possible solutions.
Commissioners also gave the go-ahead to
build a new bridge to replace a deteriorating one
off Mitchell Bridge Road, rather than replacing
it with cement culverts. Culverts—large paral
lel cement pipes—would destroy a portion of
Hunnicutt Creek's banks, and can limit the move
ment of wildlife, repre
sentatives of Athens Grow
Green Coalition and the
Upper Oconee Watershed
Network told commis
sioners at their January
and February meetings.
Hunnicutt Creek flows into the Middle Oconee
River at Ben Burton Park.
Commissioners took those environmental
concerns seriously. "I do want to ensure that
we have clean water in this community," said
Commissioner Hoard. "We have to understand
that cost means more than just money." said
Commissioner Elton Dodson. But Commissioner
McCarter was dubious of the views of the envi
ronmentalists: "The results you get depend on
who you ask," he said, and he supported county
staffs recommendation for the cheaper culverts.
Commissioners continued to press Deputy
Manager Snipes for cost estimates on the two
options—initial estimates were that the bridge
would cost 5250,000, at least 510.000 more than
the culverts—but stopped short of directing him
to partly design them both to get more exact
figures, as had been discussed in February. In
the end, they voted in favor of the bridge with
the caveat that its costs not grow unduly high as
compared to those of the culvert.
John Hule iphuie@speedfactory net
Kappa Alpha
Unwelcome in the Neighborhood
At a neighborhood meeting Mar. 6. members
of the local chapter of Kappa Alpha (KA) frater
nity received a first-rate history lesson about the
neighborhood they plan to move into. KA is one
of five fraternities that will be forced to move
off of Lumpkin Street by the end of 2007, and
is the only one of those five to have purchased
property off campus and applied for a building
permit before the Athens-Clarke County (ACC)
Mayor and Commission passed a six-month mora
torium on new fraternity house construction on
Feb. 7. While most of the eight KA members who
attended the meeting said afterwards that they'd
expected to hear concerns about quality-of-life
issues like noise, trash, parties and parking, they
admitted to having been unprepared to encoun
ter vehement disapproval from African-American
neighbors who were unpleasantly surprised to
learn last month of the fraternity's plans to build
a house in their neighborhood. The KA brothers'
reputation, it would seem, precedes them. They
are considered by many to be perhaps the least
culturally sensitive fraternity on campus—they
hold an annual "Old South" parade, dnd were one
of the fraternities who were finally convinced to
put away their house's
Confederate battle flag
in the 1990s—and the
idea that they're mov
ing into one of Athens'
oldest and most his
torically significant
African-American neighborhoods has come as a
rude shock to many of the people, both black and
white, who live there.
KA's housing corporation, a small group of in
vestors who are KA alumni, bought the Cobb Hill
Apartments on Hancock Avenue late last year.
The two-and-a-half acre site currently holds four
apartment buildings; KA chapter advisor Mark
Cross explained at the meeting that the group's
plan is to demolish two of those buildings and
erect a large, brick, white-columned house
("what we'd refer to as a Southern mansion,
antebellum-type house," he said) fronting onto
Hancock Avenue. Cross said his group searched
Athens-Clarke County for locations with suitable
(multi-family) zoning that would be convenient
to bus lines and to campus. Nine sites spread
across town were narrowed down to three or four,
he said, and the Cobb Hill Apartments property
was chosen. He expects construction to begin in
August.
The informational meeting was held just
two blocks from that property, in the sanctu
ary of Hill First Baptist Church, which dates to
1867 and is the oldest African-American church
in Athens. The neighborhood surrounding the
church—known as the Reese Street Historic
District and designated on the National Register
of Historic Places (but not officially recognized
as a local historic district)—was also home to
other institutions of Athens' growing black com
munity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
including the Knox Institute and the Athens High
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“I didn’t know a thing about
this alternate proposal," said
Commissioner Kathy Hoard.
Many residents fear that a planned
traffic light at Old Lexington Road
only foreshadows more congestion.
MARCH 15.2006 • FLAGPOLE.COM 5
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