As of now, DeKalb County has no plans to recover land traded away in a 2021 exchange with the former Blackhall Studios.
In 2021, DeKalb County traded 40 acres of Southeast Atlanta’s Intrenchment Creek Park to then Blackhall Studios in exchange for 53 acres of nearby land to be converted into a new county park. At the time, Blackhall, owned by real estate investor and movie executive Ryan Millsap, pledged $1.5 million to the new park project.
The swap was controversial, with the environmental groups South River Watershed Alliance and South River Forest Coalition suing the county, saying that it did not have the authority to trade public park land for private use. The case was eventually dismissed.
Later that same year, a private equity firm called Commonwealth Group purchased Blackhall (the studio that sits on the property is now called Shadowbox Studios). According to a 2021 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the sale, the 40 acres from the swap remained under Millsap’s control.
In June of this year, DeKalb Commissioner Ted Terry introduced a resolution requesting that the county administration reverse the land exchange. At a Dec. 16 DeKalb County Board of Commissioners meeting, Terry said that over the summer, the board heard that the county was interested in trying to buy the land back. At that time, the resolution was amended to support the county’s decision to do so.
The resolution also requested that the county reopen Intrenchment Creek Park, which was closed by then-DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond in 2023, and that the county use funds originally planned for hard-surface trails through the park for overall park restoration instead.
At the Dec. 16 meeting, DeKalb Chief Operating Officer Zach Williams said that at this time, the county plans to focus on building a new greenspace called Michelle Obama Park on the land it acquired from the swap, not on recovering the 40 acres it traded away. The commission voted to withdraw the resolution.
“We have had some conversations — and I don’t know how much I’m able to discuss in this setting — but we’ve had some conversation relative to the original land swap,” Williams said. “But currently, our position is we want to utilize the property that we have that was traded in the land swap. We want to make good on what we assured the community was going to happen.”
Terry asked Williams to elaborate on the county’s position. According to the resolution, Blackhall has not fulfilled all of its obligations under the 2021 land swap, including completion of “certain park improvements at Blackhall’s sole cost, up to $1,500,000 … “
“It would be helpful if we just understood, very clearly, is the desire just to complete the contract, the land swap is final, we’ll get our money, Millsap will get his land, and then that issue is done? Because if that’s the case, then we’ll just withdraw this item right now,” Terry said. “But if there’s a desire for the administration to still try and get the land back, then I would suggest that we just defer this until we get a definitive answer from the administration.”
Williams reiterated that the county is focused on building Michelle Obama Park. If the issue of the land swap arises at a later time, Williams said the county would address it at that point.
When a county official asked the commissioners to stop discussing the matter in public, Terry suggested tabling the issue for an executive session in January. In response to questions about where talks about recovering the land stand at the moment, a spokesperson for DeKalb County said that conversations are ongoing.
“DeKalb County has expressed interest in buying back the land that was swapped to Blackhall in 2021,” said the spokesperson. “Conversations about that and related topics are ongoing, including plans for development of the land DeKalb County acquired from Blackhall in 2021. More details will be provided when available.”
In June of this year, the company Blackhall Real Estate Phase II LLC filed a petition for quiet title of the 40 acres that Blackhall received in the land swap. A plaintiff can file for quiet title to clear up questions about the legal ownership of a property. The petition refers to the previous 2021 lawsuit filed by South River Watershed Alliance and South River Forest Coalition, which questioned the county’s ability to swap the land in the first place.
The county spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the quiet title petition has anything to do with why a decision on reversing the land swap has not been made. Attorneys for Blackhall Real Estate Phase II LLC did not return a request for comment.