ALPHARETTA – Why isn’t the graphic for this post a picture of Alpharetta’s new City Center stretching toward the sky? Because it doesn’t exist. That’s why. Ghosts don’t show up on film or digital sensors.
I wrote almost two years ago about Alpharetta’s plans to redevelop "downtown" Alpharetta and build a new City Hall. To date, not an inch of dirt has been turned due to legal battles over public financing methods and hold out landowners. This article in The Beacon provides and updated overview of the situation:
Holding Out Hope: Alpharetta’s Quest For A New City Hall – beaconcast.com .
What I don’t get is whether Bob Miller, whose property is shown at left, is saint or villain. The first paragraphs of the article states: "[Miller] has been willing to part with [his property] as a way to contribute to the city’s vision. This makes Miller sound pretty generous.
Later, however, the Milton Square Partnership is identified as the group of property owners who have held out, not willing to sell to enable a larger vision of the project to move forward. And here is the point: Miller is part of the Milton Square Partnership, along with Dockery’s Cafe (shown at right).
So is Miller part of the problem or part of the solution?
Alpharetta assistant city administrator, James Drinkard, is also quoted as saying they won’t use eminent domain to take the land. In fact, the City of Alpharetta has a resolution that says it is not their policy to use eminent domain. "That’s just not the way we do business," says Drinkard.
Why not? Eminent domain exists for a reason. That is, there are often public benefits of projects that outweigh individual benefits. It is not like the private landowners are uncompensated for their land. They are paid a market price.
Yes, the project can be built without the adjoining Milton Square Partnership’s land. Despite what City Councilman David Belle Isle says, in my opinion, it won’t be as good as it could be. You’ll wind up with inconsistent development in downtown. The brand new City Center will be directly next door to Dockery’s Cafe, which is a typical, half-empty, strip center and Miller’s old, white clapboard house.
Miller was quoted in the article as saying, “If we could get all this together and redevelop [the land] for a city center it would be a wonderful thing for Alpharetta.”
So what about it Mr. Miller?
Kevin,
For the record, Mr. Miller is NOT part of the Old Milton Square partnership and is not a factor at all to any of the negotiation difficulties. The Old Milton Square Partners are not holding out either. Their property is for sale and the negotiations have been ongoing, however when you have several partners involved it sometimes gets very complicated and takes much longer. In the meantime, the developers and the city have been working on many different plans trying to come up with the “just right” layout. This process is very slow and further delayed by the inability of the developers to have all the private land owners on board by this time. The developers for this run at the city project were given the green light in Feb. of this year. In the world of commercial developing, 7 months goes by in the blink of an eye. When working on an assemblage like this, it gets even tougher/longer.
Imagine yourself walking into a car lot to by a new car. There is only ONE car in the lot and you have no choice but to BUY that car and your funds are limited. The sticker price is higher than your checkbook is, but it is a fair price. The car dealer knows your position. How long do you think it will take you to close that pricing gap with some kind of creative deal making? That’s gonna be a tough one!
I enjoy your web blog. Keep up the good work. Let me know if I can ever help you with the commercial side.
Scott French Capital Realty Advisors scottfrench@me.com
Scott, I really appreciate your weighing in on this topic. That is the great thing about this blog technology: It allows readers to contribute so that we can get a more complete story.
Thanks for clarifying Mr. Miller affiliation with – or lack there of – the Old Milton Square Partnership because The Beacon article sure did make it sound like he was part of it.
To your point about the property actually being for sale, yes, that is understood. However, it is the terms/price of that sale that is in question. The City obviously thinks the asking price of the private land owners is inflated.
Yep, the private parties have the City over a barrel by holding key land to the development. I don’t know what the City has offered and I don’t know what the Partnership is asking, but I’d politely suggest that another word this is extortion. This is by no means a competitive, open-market transaction by its very nature.
Where we could expand your analogy is to say that the car buyer in this case is not just some Joe walking in off the street. He is an elected representative of the whole community and the “car” he is buying is going to be used to help the whole community get around. Because he represents the whole community he has been given special legal powers to get his way so the car dealer doesn’t take advantage of the situation.
Yes, 7 months is not long to get this done, but the reality is that this has been going on for years, it is just that a new developer is involved. The old one couldn’t get the private parties to go along; why do we think the new one will?
We have a great opportunity to do something fantastic with downtown Alpharetta. Indeed, to create a real downtown that a city of Alpahretta’s stature deserves. Why should we compromise the optimal design simply because a couple of private parties won’t deal? There is a greater common good here…that’s all I’m saying. Why can’t we do what makes best sense from a larger public perspective? That is the job of our (local) government in my opinion.
Scott, thanks again for posting your comments. I hope that you’ll continue to read and comment in the future.
k.