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From Georgia Square to Town Square
ANOTHER PLAN TO REDEVELOP THE MALL, AND MORE LOCAL NEWS
By Blake Aued and Shelby Israel news@flagpole.com
A new and improved plan to redevelop
Georgia Square Mall, as well as two more
apartment developments near downtown,
will go before the Athens-Clarke County
Planning Commission this week.
The plan to demolish most of the dying
mall and replace it with a new town cen
ter-style mixed-use development addresses
some criticisms of the previous plan by
adding more greenspace, trees and bike/
pedestrian infrastructure. It also includes
a transit center on Atlanta Highway, where
county officials eventually plan to add
routes and provide more frequent ser
vice. About 1,000 trees would be planted,
providing a 40% shade coverage, whereas
the 74-acre property is currently covered
almost entirely by asphalt. Paved surfaces
would be reduced by 19 acres, according to
the developers.
Landscape architect Scott Haines of
Athens firm W&A Engineering described
the new development as a regional destina
tion during a town-hall meeting at the mall
last month that was attended by more than
100 people. Traditional malls are dying
because people increasingly do their shop
ping online, he said.
“You have to be more than stores,”
Haines said. “You have to be a place where
people want to go, have an experience,
spend time with their families, have other
amenities.”
If approved, the project will be built in
phases. Current tenants would be relocated
to the central part of the mall around the
atrium, which would be retained, along with
Belk, the last remaining anchor store after
Sears, Macy’s and JCPenney all closed. The
two wings would be demolished, as would
the long-vacant former movie theater. A lin
ear park would run down the center of the
property, with office, retail and apartment
buildings toward the front and townhouses
in the back, surrounded by a two-lane ring
road with a multi-use path.
All in all, the new development would
include almost 1,200 housing units with a
total of over 2,000 bedrooms, along with
nearly 300,000 square feet of commercial
space and 80,000 square feet of office space.
For comparison, the existing 42-year-old
mall is about 500,000 square feet. Ninety-
nine of the apartments (10%) will be set
aside as affordable and leased at below-mar-
ket rates, in exchange for a 15% density
bonus under the county’s inclusionary zon
ing law. A new building where the theater
is now would be housing specifically for
seniors 55 and up.
Many questions at the town hall meet
ing, organized by Commissioner Jesse
Houle, related to keeping people out of a
private lake in a neighborhood behind the
mall. It will be protected by a stormwater
drainage pond, and possibly a fence or a
wall if necessary, said Jon Williams, presi
dent of W8cA Engineering.
Another development, dubbed Finley &
Pope, is proposed for four parcels on West
Broad Street between, as the name would
suggest, Finley and Pope streets. Aimed
at graduate students, faculty members
and young professionals, according to its
ACC Planning Department application, it
would include 235 mostly two-bedroom
apartments, and ground-floor space for
restaurants and boutiques. In addition,
the developer has offered to expand and
improve Reese and Pope Park—which
would remain public but be privately main
tained—at no cost to taxpayers, adding a
memorial to the original State Botanical
Garden that once graced the site, walking
paths, a pavilion, public restrooms and
space for a stage or food trucks.
A third proposal seeks to demolish and
rebuild River Mill, a 1970s student housing
complex in Carr’s Hill just east of campus
and north of Oconee Hill Cemetery. All
three requests are scheduled to go before
the planning commission on Thursday, Dec.
8, then on to the Mayor and Commission at
a later date. [Blake Aued]
ACC Distributes Housing Funds
The ACC Commission will vote Dec. 13
on distributing $5.1 million in federal funds
to local affordable housing nonprofits.
The funding comes from the 2021
American Rescue Plan Act. ACC received
$60 million through the act and set aside
$11 million for affordable housing. The rest
has already been allocated to the North
Downtown Project, the redevelopment of
Bethel Midtown Village in partnership with
the Athens Housing Authority.
A citizen committee and county Housing
and Community Development Department
staff recommended four projects for fund
ing: $1.5 million to Athens Area Habitat for
Humanity for Micah’s Creek, an affordable
housing development for families with
students at Gaines Elementary School;
$2.75 million for the Athens Land Trust to
build 15 affordable houses on Ruth Street,
Dublin Street and Hawthorne Extension;
$415,000 for an ALT home repair program;
and $415,000 for an Athens Community
Council on Aging home repair program.
ACC received a total of $20 million in
requests, later whittled down to $14 mil
lion. Other applications were submitted by
the developers of a “cottage court” subdivi
sion at 1165 Oglethorpe Ave. near Forest
Heights, the East Athens Development
Corp., Athens Recovery Center and Hopeful
Inspiration, a group that wanted to make
a documentary about repairing homes in
Forest Heights. [BA]
UGA Council Won't Oppose
Tenure Changes
A group of University of Georgia
University Council faculty and staff mem
bers voted last week against a petition
seeking to reverse controversial changes to
the university system’s post-tenure review
policy in a Wednesday meeting.
The petition, which was signed by over
50 faculty members across UGA, sought
to reverse the council’s Sept. 28 decision
to comply with the University System
of Georgia’s revisions to the post-tenure
review policy, which allows a USG insti
tution to “at any time remove any faculty
member or other employee of an institu
tion for cause.” The motion to oppose the
changes in effect at UGA was rejected in a
36-125 vote at a University Council meet
ing Nov. 30.
The post-tenure review policy was
adopted by the Board of Regents in October
2021. After it passed, the American
Association of University Professors
(AAUP) published a statement calling the
decision a “flagrant violation of principles
on academic freedom and tenure.”
“The new USG policy effectively abol
ishes tenure in Georgia’s public colleges
and universities by allowing a system insti
tution to dismiss a tenured professor for
failing to remediate deficiencies identified
through post-tenure evaluation without
affording a hearing before a faculty body
in which the administration demonstrates
cause for dismissal,” according to the state
ment. “Without this academic due process,
tenure does not exist.”
The AAUP subsequently censured the
USG for the decision. The motion from the
University Council meeting stated that
the council would commit to reversing the
changes to the policy, and as a result would
enable the AAUP to revoke the censure.
UGA mathematics professor Joseph
Fu presented the motion at the meeting.
“Last point I want to make is that it will be
argued here that UGA policies instituted in
response to the BOR are sufficient to replace
what will be lost,” Fu said. “I want to simply
point out that what we’ve lost is a funda
mental principle which cannot be replaced.”
Other voting members in attendance
expressed their disapproval of the motion,
saying that the revisions to the policy still
leave adequate due process in post-tenure
review.
“The procedures in place for dismissal
after post-tenure review are due process
and then some,” said David Shipley, a pro
fessor in the UGA School of Law. “It is a
remarkably detailed procedural protections
for the faculty member. The burden is not
on the faculty member, but on the institu
tion, to justify the evaluation of that faculty
member after going through a remarkably
detailed process year in, year out, for
post-tenure review, and I think to say this is
dismissal without cause is just plain wrong.”
[Shelby Israel] C
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DEQEMBER 7, 2022- FLAGPOLE.COM 5
A rendering of the proposed Finley & Pope development, as seen from Reese Street.
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