After five years of working on a downtown redevelopment plan, Flowery Branch City Council is ready to sign an agreement with The Residential Group (TRG) that will make the plan a reality.
Thursday night City Manager Bill Andrew gave a presentation to city council members and about 20 community members who attended a council work session. Andrew noted that the city has been transparent about plans for redevelopment since 2014, when the city began a study on the best way to revitalize the downtown area - both the historic district and the immediate areas surrounding downtown. Citizens have had a chance to offer input and view possible plans throughout the process.
Funding for the multi-layered plan will come from dollars generated via the city's Tax Allocation District - or TAD.
Mayor Mike Miller said the city decided to use TRG to develop the project after looking at work the group had done in nearby Duluth in Gwinnett County. He thinks citizens will be pleased with what's about to happen to Flowery Branch.
"[The plan] brings a lot of things into the mix," Miller said. "It brings some retail, it brings some housing, it brings parks, it brings pedestrian trails and it kind of ties everything in downtown together. It's exactly what the Tax Allocation District was designed to do."
Council will vote on the agreement on July 18, and Miller said he hopes Flowery Branch residents will take time to review the plan between now and that date.
"It gives them almost a full month to digest it, to pick it apart, to look at it, to analyze it," Miller said.
Miller noted there is no need for a public hearing on the agreement, saying there have been town hall meetings about the overall redevelopment, and the only vote needed to get the project started is the vote on July 18. He encouraged residents to ask questions of their council members.
He said, in theory, work could begin once the agreement is approved; however, Miller was unsure of TRG's timetable.
He does know the first part of the project, though, is the rebuilding of the old City Hall block on Main Street. The current building will come down and will be replaced by a two story development that will include apartments on the top floor - to be managed by TRG - and a retail/commercial component on the bottom floor that will be under city management.
To see the full content of the draft agreement between the city of Flowery Branch and The Residential Group, which includes diagrams of the proposed developments, follow this link.
