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Frat House: Sigma Chi has been quietly work
ing on plans for a big new fraternity house
that they'd like to build at 340 N. Milledge
Ave. (between Meigs Street and Hancock
Avenue), despite significant opposition from
the neighborhood, including some alumni
members of the fraternity. Although the site
has a Milledge address, it's many blocks away
from the fraternity and sorority row of South
Milledge, in the much quieter Cobbham neigh
borhood. The area has already been hit by
one unwelcome fraternity, Kappa Alpha, which
got its way (with the invaluable assistance
of county staff) by holding the threat that
something much worse could be built over
Commissioners' heads, so lawyering up is prob
ably a smart move for neighbors of the site
currently in question.
Is this yet another case of out-of-town
alumni deciding what's best for the com
munity and its residents simply because they
donate money and come back a few times a
year for football games? It sounds an awful
lot like arguments the Selig team has made;
WM.
Chi Phi forced its way onto Milledge Ave. in spite of neighborhood opposition. Will Sigma Chi do the same?
found the historically black Reese and Pope
neighborhood nearby to be an appropriate site
for its plantation house-inspired dormitory,
and neighbors are right to fear this becoming
a pattern.
Neighborhood residents have already
retained a land-use attorney to help them in
the fight against the proposal. Of course, the
Chi Phi fraternity on the other end of Milledge
in support of its request for carte blanche
on the future of downtown Athens, the firm
was eager to mention money donated to the
university and that a parking lot near the
Coliseum bears its name.
Of course, this problem wouldn't exist if
the university weren't actively pushing these
fraternities off campus. Sigma Chi is the
last holdout on Lumpkin Street, where a row
' '
mm
The new Family Dollar store at Rocksprings St. and Baxter St. is part of a wave of intown small-box stores.
of fraternity houses once stood, which is now
slated for a big new expansion of the Terry
College of Business. There is, of course, still
space in the River Road fraternity row, but the
university's reputation as a landlord for frater
nities is untrustworthy to those kicked off or
bought out. .
Perhaps the pending retirement of President
Michael Adams will open up a more flexible
chapter in campus planning that will actu
ally allow these student communities to live
on campus. Frat houses are but one of many
town-gown issues that need more planning
and more partnership to move past adversarial
battles. As the economy heats back up, the
construction of student housing is ramping
back up. Even the current conflict over a tree
in Normaltown and infill housing there is only
the first of many battles that neighborhood
will face as the University Health Sciences
Campus gets going. A veterinary teaching
hospital is slated for College Station Road,
and retains many sites for future growth.
Hopefully, UGA's next president will be pre
pared to work with local citizens proactively
as the university aggressively spreads its influ
ence into so many different parts of town.
Dollar Stores: A Family Dollar store is under
construction at Baxter and Rocksprings, at the
former location of Pock's Foods, and a Dollar
General is proposed a few blocks away, at
Broad and Chase. It's an interesting prolifera
tion, and I wonder if we'll start to see more
of these infill general stores throughout
town. The one being built on Baxter sits right
on the corner and might have the potential to
buoy Baxter's revitalization, which seems to
have taken a hit lately with several vacancies
cropping up along the corridor.
• The Homewood Hills Shopping Center
was recently reanimated by a Dollar General
Market, that company's new and bigger gro
cery store format. Perhaps the dollar store
business model could become a new strategy
for delivering walkable access to foods and
essential goods. Pharmacies have already
been actively seeking intown sites and, to
some degree, presenting themselves as cor
ner stores, operating at a similar scale and
density.
It's interesting to consider, with the loom
ing threat of a big-box Walmart downtown,
how companies with smaller boxes are all try
ing to crack the urban market. Though without
quite the stifling force of a Walmart, they do
raise the same questions about the com
petitiveness of local businesses in the face of
corporate supply chains. Perhaps what all this
points to is the end of locally owned retail for
general goods, not only here, but everywhere.
Of course, with companies like Woolworth's
managing hundreds of five-and-dime stores a
century ago, and the Sears catalog's similar
hegemony and approach to lowering costs via
a large supply chain, perhaps it's always been
a bit more complicated than we often think. A
more nuanced discussion of the possibilities of
locally owned retail and its economic role in
the community that gets away from nostalgia
for the good ole days of Main Street might be
a productive direction in which to head.
Kevan Williams athensrising@flagpole.com
E PU BLI.C
salon
312 E. BROAD ST. * 3RD FLOOR • 706.206.5222 • FRIC1DAIRE BUILDING * ENTRANCE ON JACKSON ST. * WWW.REPUBLICSALON.COH
JUNE 20, 2012 - FLAGPOLE.COM 7