Real estate developer Shelton McNally wants to build a mixed-use building at 5810 Roswell Road that would have apartments, retail space and co-working offices.
The 1.3-acre property currently is home to a NAPA Autocare Center and is zoned CS-3, which allows buildings up to three stories. Shelton McNally wants to build a six-story building with 199 apartment units, nearly 2,500 square feet of retail space and 5,000 square feet of coworking space, said Conor McNally, a principal at Shelton McNally.
The uses are allowed with the existing zoning, McNally said, but they need a CS-6 zoning because it’s a small site. That would allow the developer to build up to six stories.
“Given the city code only allows steel and concrete construction, it isn’t economically viable to develop a steel and concrete building in three stories on a site that small,” he said.
McNally said he thinks most people would agree its current use as a NAPA auto parts and repair shop is “fairly unsightly.”
The site also has environmental contamination, he said. Between the construction requirements and contamination, he said the only way they can get a reasonable amount of density on the site is to go underground for parking.
“Our plan will have two levels of underground parking. And that means we’re going to have to do quite an amount of environmental remediation,” McNally said.
Shelton McNally plans to put the site into the Georgia Brownfields program. That will require them to go through the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which includes some liability protections but requires a very complete cleanup. The cleanup plan must be submitted and approved.
“It’s a somewhat challenging site to develop given all of those constraints, given the small size,” McNally said.
He said his company has been working on the project for six months and plans to submit an application to Sandy Springs Community Development this week to begin the rezoning process. A community meeting was held June 2.
If it moves forward, the six-story building would have two courtyards. It would be tiered so that it’s not a large monolithic building, McNally said. The retail would be at the corner of Roswell Road and Allen Road.
Residents of this building and others in the area would be able to use the coworking space, McNally said.
With the pandemic, more people are working from home, he said. At Shelton McNally’s own developments and others across the country, there’s a significant demand from tenants to have separate private office space within a multifamily community.
“People who work from home don’t necessarily want to be sitting in their living room working all day, and the office is their home and home is the office,” he said.
He described the development as a boutique, luxury multifamily community being built to condominium quality standards.
The construction will be financed as an apartment building. That enables them to get financing and begin construction immediately. If it was financed as condos, the lender would require them to pre-sell 30% to 50% of the units.
“The development will not necessarily remain as apartments forever,” he said. They will build it and decide what is the most economically viable use – apartments or condos.
Rents are projected to start at just under $2,000 for smaller units to $2,600 or $2,700 for two-bedroom apartments, McNally said.
If everything goes according to plan, construction will start in April or May of 2023 and take 18 to 20 months to complete, he said.
McNally and his partner, Jim Shelton, were former principals at Carter and Associates. While at Carter, they were responsible for the Aston City Springs apartment development and project management of the entire City Springs complex, McNally said.
