Huge Roswell project faces hurdles
By PAUL KAPLAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/01/07
Charlie Brown retired three years ago at 65 and installed his son Scott as head of his development company in Atlanta.
The time off didn't last long. Brown got a call 2 1/2 years ago from an outfit that owns 107 prized acres along Ga. 400 at the Chattahoochee River. It wanted to take down an old apartment complex in Roswell and do something big with the land.
Brown knows big — he was a driving force behind Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta — and the plan he came up with was the $2.1 billion Roswell East mixed-use development. It would be the biggest project ever built on the Northside.
"I've come back off the bench," Brown said.
But not everyone in the crowd is cheering. Roswell East has touched off a communitywide debate over what sort of development is appropriate in the suburbs, and at what level of density.
Brown wants to build a mini-city anchored by 19 mid-rise and high-rise buildings. That density is needed to incorporate the level of green space and open space that suburbanites demand, Brown says.
Roswell has no high-rises, however, and four members of the six-member City Council have expressed deep reservations about the level of density Brown is proposing. If those four vote no, Brown's plan is dead.
One conspiracy theory making the rounds is that Brown and Mayor Jere Wood will delay the City Council's consideration of the mixed-use community until after the November elections.
Two of the council members who have taken shots at Roswell East are up for re-election. If voters replace them with new council members who support Brown's project, Wood will have enough support to push it through — or so the thinking goes.
Is Brown planning such a delay?
"Absolutely not," he said. "We want the present council to make a decision on this. We're talking about May or June."
Whenever Brown brings his project forward, it will be a defining moment for the city and its leaders.
"This year is a crossroads, and people are going to have to decide which way they want to go," said City Councilman David Tolleson. "It's being exacerbated by the fact that it's an election year. That's really what's driving the rhetoric. Where we will go as a city will be decided in November."
Brown said that as the community gets all the facts about his project, the support will grow, and the elected leaders will follow.
Brown needs at least a 3-3 split on the council to allow Mayor Wood — one of the project's strongest supporters — to break the tie and approve Roswell East.
But Wood said it would be a mistake to assume Brown has his vote. Wood is a big proponent of mixed-use development, and he has called Brown a "visionary," but Wood also is a savvy politician.
He loves being mayor, and he won't risk it all if he senses that the community does not support the project.
"Charlie has my support of the project, but he doesn't have my vote yet," Wood said. "That's conditioned on community support, and I don't know where they stand yet."
Wood also says he won't vote for Roswell East unless the project is built in conjunction with a major overhaul of the interchange at Ga. 400 and Holcomb Bridge Road.
That will cost millions and is not on the Atlanta Regional Commission's list of priority road projects.
Brown said he hopes to get the mayor's and council's support for his project when there's an "indication" the road money could be coming.
That's not good enough, Wood said. "I can't support his project unless I have a commitment for the money. That doesn't mean money in the bank, but I need a funding mechanism. A possibility is not going to get it."
Wood is trying to get the money from every source possible — the city, the state and the federal government.
But he has no illusions about getting the project done completely with outside funding. He said Roswell may have to help pay for it, and Brown's team could have to pony up, too.
Brown thinks Wood will get the road money. "It's possible because the lead is being taken by the local government, and because it affects the region," Brown said, ticking off six counties whose residents use the intersecting roads — Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth and DeKalb.
"That interchange serves more people with less capacity than any road around," Brown said.
Wood chuckled when he heard that Brown wants to bring his plan to the City Council within a month or two. He doesn't think it's remotely possible before late summer, and maybe not until much further out than that.
"Right now I don't have a plan that I know will work, and I don't have funding," Wood said. "I'm confident we can find the funding if we have the political will. But it may take years, and if it takes years, we may lose the project."
Brown shrugs at the thought of Roswell East going down the tubes — and himself going back into retirement.
"Win some, lose some," he said. "That's the way it is."
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