Dunwoody’s Urban Renewal Agency has approved an agreement to sell the Dunwoody Green property for $900,000 to Crim Development, moving forward a plan for unique restaurants to be built there.
Crim Development is seeking to construct 20,000 square feet of restaurant and retail on 2.5 acres in what’s designated at the city’s Project Renaissance urban redevelopment plan. A small park space at the center of the project is included in preliminary plans. The site is now dubbed The Park at Georgetown.
The acreage, at the intersection of North Shallowford Road and Dunwoody Park, is part of the Dunwoody Green commercial site within the larger Project Renaissance development.
The URA owns the property and the site is an extension of a public purpose of Project Renaissance, which includes the creation of parks, new residential units and a multiuse trail system, according to Starling.
Economic Development Director Michael Starling said the sale is expected to close in the next few months. A construction date or timeline has not been determined.
Crim Development, based in Sandy Springs, is currently developing a 5,900-square-foot retail building at the corner of Mount Vernon Road and Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, the site of a former car wash.
Early plans for that site included a Rize Artisan Pizza, but according to reports that lease was broken last year.
The Dunwoody Green part of Project Renaissance is intended to be a catalyst for additional development activity in the Georgetown area and North Shallowford Road Corridor, while also creating a sense of place for the community, he said.
Project Renaissance goes back to 2012, when 35 acres were purchased by the city. The property now is owned by the URA. One parcel is the 16-acre property known as the “PVC Farm” — for its previously half-developed state with pipes sticking out of the ground — that City Council purchased for $5 million. The other is the 19-acre site of the former Emory Dunwoody Hospital.
The city selected John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods as its development partner after an invitation for proposals. Wieland purchased some 13 acres and is nearly finished building more than 110 homes.
The Citizens of Dunwoody are delighted our city officials have ventured into the real estate business. How fortunate we are to have such good stewards of our taxpayer dollars being invested in the real estate market. What could go wrong?
I’d like to see them lure the New School of Music back to Dunwoody.
I was going to mention that they paid about 780K for this acreage (about 6 years ago). Wieland has so far succeeded in getting the rest of the acreage built out and sold. So I don’t think the officials are doing anything particularly risky.
Would it have been better had the pvc farm remained fallow, or just contained apartments instead of homes?