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WHAT'S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Armstrong and Dobbs: soon to be home to an 8.3 acre... something.
Whoever's in charge of the river dis
trict proposal—it's hard to tell whether it's
the mayor and commission, the Economic
Development Foundation or, more likely, no
one at all—seems to feel that they're off
the hook, now that news has surfaced that a
private developer is scoping the Armstrong
and Dobbs property. The EOF has put the
brakes on hiring a project manager and
appointing a committee to vet the river dis
trict idea. Commissioners, meanwhile, want
more answers. They'll be waiting a long
time, though, if someone isn't willing to put
together a team of fact-finders.
Several commissioners at an August work
session wondered why a private developer
wasn't out there chomping at the bit to part
ner with the county on a project like this.
Well, it turns out that there is a private devel
oper out there, and regardless of what that
developer has in mind or how closely its group
wants to work with the public side, their pres
ence is proof of the merits of the river district
concept. It's where this town is going to
grow next, and if we get out in front of it, we
can use that momentum to pull this commu
nity out of its poverty-stricken rut.
Of course, with no concrete plans on the
table, the old adage of expecting the worst
and hoping for the best comes to mind. Say
that this deal—which right now seems to be
somewhat compatible with the river district-
falls through, based on the sentiments of the
public officials involved, and the developers
go with the safe bet of student housing. Or
maybe they're planning to build student hous
ing right now, anyway; we don't really know,
do we? The developers would be within their
zoned rights to build another 909 Broad, twice
or three times as big, given the expanded
footprint of the A&D site. It would help boost
property taxes, and it would get people living
downtown, but it wouldn't do much at all for
economic development, and it would be pretty
ugly. If this community's leadership steps back
now and decides to wait and see what hap
pens, they're putting themselves in the same
reactionary position as always.
Over the years, many studies and reports
have described Athens as ripe for some sort
of economic development initiative. We
never have, however, conceived a vision and
moved on to execution. The news of this lat
est project should be read as a sign to press
on rather than hang back. That developers
like this one are out there means that we're
headed in the right direction. The next step is
to get the community's visions for the area on
paper and in the codes, so that when projects
like these come forward, we can be assured
that they'll fit into what we have in mind, so
that their positive contributions will be fully
leveraged.
Commissioners have expressed some rea
sonable skepticism about borrowing money
and buying land in times like these, but that
doesn't mean they are out of options. There's
plenty of county-owned land, and if a big
project is built, and a tax allocation district
is in place, we could even do our downtown
economic development strictly on a pay-as-
you-go basis.
Two weeks ago, we looked at how vari
ous private developments would provide
money to a river district TAD; if we apply
that same thinking to a project on the scale
of Armstrong & Dobbs, we would find that
property taxes would increase by over a half
million dollars every year. In the initial con
ception of the river district, that money would
go to pay down a bond that was created and
spent in the beginning. However, an infra
structure account on that scale could keep
us pretty busy, with projects undertaken on a
yearly basis as they come up, perhaps result
ing in a more nimble strategy for developing
the fringes of downtown.
To get that far, we'll need to identify all the
county land that's ripe for redevelopment in
the area and then create a boundary for a TAD
that includes both those publicly-held areas
and sites like A8.D. Then, we'll need to del
egate attracting more businesses to the EDF,
and management of that TAD infrastructure
account to someone else, perhaps through the
Athens Downtown Development Authority or
an Urban Design Commission.
News like this means we're headed in the
right direction; now's the time to figure out
which tools we can use to get us to the end
goal. Hesitation helps opportunities fall apart,
or morph into things we aren't proud of, like
football-themed student apartments. Just
about every public official in town is on record
as wanting something like this to happen.
What are they willing to do to get us there?
Kevan Williams athensrising@flagpole.com
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SEPTEMBER 14. 2011 ■ FLAGPOLE.COM 7
KEVAN WILLIAMS