The Cumming City Council postponed a vote on a rezoning that would make way for a proposed mixed-use development that would reimagine almost 56 acres at Meadow Drive and Veterans Memorial Boulevard with apartments, townhomes, single-family homes, retail and office space, a parking deck and self-storage facility.
Members voted 4-0, with Councilmember Christopher Light absent, to push the vote until the council’s next work session on Tuesday, Nov. 5, after zoning conditions were recently revised by the city’s planning commission.
“I’d like to look over the conditions myself,” Councilmember Jason Evans said.
The project, called Mashburn Village, was designed by Wakefield Beasley & Associates, the firm behind Avalon, The Battery Atlanta at SunTrust Park and Halcyon, among others, and it would transform 55.6 acres into a new hub of activity just south of the city’s current downtown.
Plans call for 438 residential units, including 320 apartments, 76 single-family homes and 62 townhomes. The apartments would be a mixture of one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging from 700 to 1,475 square feet on first-floor commercial space. The townhomes would range from 1,400 to 1,550 square feet, while single-family homes would be a minimum of 1,800 square feet.
There would be a “village” with 68,000 square feet of retail/flex space, along with a 90,000-square-foot self-storage facility.
The project also calls for the city to extend Buford Dam Road through the middle of the development to create a new thoroughfare between Atlanta Road and Veterans Memorial Boulevard.
“This is a very, very great zoning for the city,” said Emory Lipscomb, an attorney with the law firm Lipscomb, Johnson, Sleister, Dailey & Smith, LLP, which is representing the applicant, Central Forsyth Properties, LLC.
Lipscomb added: “We’re proud for the city to get the quality and variety that’s going to be made possible through this zoning.”
Mashburn Village was at the heart of the controversy earlier this year over the fate of Orchard Apartments, a pair of small complexes for low-income senior citizens that have been one of the only reliable sources of affordable housing for seniors in the city since their construction in 1981 and 1985 by Dr. Marcus Mashburn Jr., a one-time prominent physician and civic leader who owned the property.
Residents received a letter in early March from management stating there was a “good possibility” the land the apartments sits on off Meadow Drive and Orchard Circle would be sold in early fall and were “strongly advised” to find a new place to live.
News of the Orchard residents’ plight sparked outcry in the community, and the Mashburn Family Trust, which owned the complexes and the property, later told the Forsyth County News that the apartments would not be affected by the proposed Mashburn Village.