A couple of new fitness centers in East Cobb are collecting gifts and toys for children in need this holiday season.
The Strongvibe studio at Paper Mill Village (147 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 4110) is having a holiday party on Saturday starting at 11 a.m. and is asking attendees to bring a gift for Cobb students who are experiencing homelessnesss.
Owner Erica Manning has started a wishlist spreadsheet (you can read it here) where you’re asked to indicate what items (and how many) you’ll be bringing.
The items include clothing, shoes, pajamas, coats and gift cards. Just sign up accordingly and you can bring your items during regular studio hours through the holiday party.
RSVP at erica@strongvibefit.com or 770-573-4010.
Stretch Zone East Cobb is pairing with East Cobb-based Simple Needs GA to collect holiday toys in a drive that continues through Dec. 15.
The studio (4371 Roswell Road, East Cobb Crossing Shopping Center) is accepting a variety of unwrapped toys for children of all ages. Stretch Zone will offer donors a free stretch session (up to two per customer) with a new or existing contract.
“Many of the families referred to us by school social workers and others have missed out on other local holiday programs because of unforeseen circumstances,” Simple Needs GA founder Brenda Rhodes said. “We want them to experience the spirit of Christmas just the same. In 2022, SNGA supplied Christmas gifts to about 300 Cobb County kids from over 100 families.”
Requested items include gift cards, Bath & Body Works products, art supplies, African-American baby dolls and accessories, Legos, VTech and Leapfrog educational toys, bike helmets, Fisher-Price play sets, board and card games, and gloves, mittens, hats and scarves in adult and older teen sizes.
For information email eastcobb@stretchzone.com or call 770-282-7941.
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The Cobb Planning Commission voted Tuesday to recommend approval of a proposed Guthries’ Chicken drive-through restaurant in East Cobb.
After continuing the application for a month, the board placed the application on the consent agenda by a 4-0 vote when no opposition arose.
The initial request to convert 3.17 acres at the southwest intersection of Lower Roswell Road and Johnson Ferry Road from planned shopping center (PSC) to neighborhood retail commercial (NRC) was on consent.
East Cobb Guthries LLC wants to convert an empty medical building for a two-lane drive-through only restaurant and purchased the property last year.
But the East Cobb Civic Association objected to some of the variances and was concerned about the lack of a detailed site plan and asked for more time to review the request.
Guthrie’s hired noted zoning attorney Kevin Moore, who submitted a stipulation letter dated Nov, 27 that addressed some of those issues and included a site plan (you can read it here).
The 1,500-square-foot building will be remodeled and the property will include 10 parking spaces, down from an original range between 22-25 spaces. The operating hours will be daily from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and access will be on Lower Roswell only.
The stipulation letter indicates that Guthries “will utilize outdoor employee order service . . . during expected, heavier volume times.”
Traffic concerns also came up during the initial hearing in November. Cobb DOT revised a traffic study and requested that Guthrie’s donate right-of-way to complete the project and for an upcoming improvement project along Lower Roswell.
District 2 Planning Commission member David Anderson included in his motion to place the application on the consent agenda a stipulation that Guthrie’s conduct a traffic study.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners is scheduled to hear the case on Dec. 19.
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Peachtree Immediate Care, an urgent care facility with more than 50 locations in metro Atlanta and North Georgia, will be opening a clinic in East Cobb this week.
A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the clinic at Woodlawn Point Shopping Center )1100 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 510). It’s part of an open house event slated from 12-2 p.m.
Peachtree Immediate Care is part of the Emory Healthcare Network, and provides comprehensive urgent care services.
The clinic is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week and offers urgent and family care services, treats minor illnesses and injuries, conducts sports physicals and X-rays, practices occupational medicine and has on-site labs.
Appointments are not required and both insurance and self-pay options are available. Patients can also check-in online and receive referrals to specialists.
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The following East Cobb residential real estate sales were compiled from agency reports. They include the subdivision name and high school attendance zone in parenthesis:
Nov. 13
884 Edgewater Circle, 30062 (Barnes Mill Lake, Wheeler): $339,000
1701 Old Canton Road, 30062 (Pope): $1.1 million
2674 Piedmont Oak Drive, 30066 (Oaks on Piedmont, Sprayberry): $432,000
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The Walton football team will end the 2023 season in the same place where it started—Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
The powerful Raiders clinched a berth in the Georgia High School Association’s Class 7A state championship game with a 41-25 win over Camden County on Friday.
Senior quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski threw for 325 yards and six touchdowns in his final game at Raider Valley, as Walton remained undefeated at 14-0.
This will be the second trip to the finals for Walton, which lost to Grayson in the 2011 championship game.
On Dec. 13, the Raiders will face Milton, which downed Grayson 45-35 in the other semifinal.
Walton’s high-powered offense, which has averaged more than 46 points a game, got off to a fast start, as the Raiders led 21-0.
But Camden County—coached by former Walton and Wheeler coach Jeff Herron—scored the first 10 points of the second half, as its Wing-T offense began to get momentum.
The touchdown was scored on an interception return for a touchdown, but Hecklinski—who is headed to Wake Forest—guided a long drive that led to a touchdown for a 28-17 Walton lead.
And the Raiders’ defense shut down Camden after that, allowing only another touchdown later in the game.
After the game, Walton coach Daniel Brunner told Georgia Public Broadcasting that he thinks Hecklinski is the best quarterback in the state.
“There’s no doubt about it. Look at the stats, look at the numbers. Best quarterback in the state. Bar none.”
Hecklinski has thrown for 3,708 yards and 48 touchdowns during the season, and running backs Makari Bodiford and Austin Williams are approaching 1,000-yard seasons.
They could surpass that in the state finals against Milton. The game will be played on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where Walton opened the season with a 49-27 win over Grayson in the Corky Kell Classic.
But more importantly, Walton has a chance to become the first school from East Cobb to win a football state championship.
Walton lost to Grayson 24-0 in the 2011 state finals under former coach Rocky Hidalgo.
In 1973, Wheeler reached the Class 3A state championship game but lost to Thomasville.
Brunner, who was named head coach at Walton in 2017, has taken the Raiders to the state playoffs each year and has a record of 66-22.
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Two years after carving up East Cobb into two Congressional districts, the Georgia legislature could be dramatically tearing up those lines again.
During a special legislative session that got underway earlier this week, Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairwoman Shelly Echols submitted a map that would put most of East Cobb in the 11th Congressional district.
Lawmakers were called to a special session after a decision by a federal judge in Atlanta to throw out the maps the legislature adopted in 2021, saying they diluted minority voting strength under the federal Voting Rights Act.
The legislature has until Dec. 8 to finish reapportionment work under the court order.
The 11th District been represented since 2016 by Cassville Republican Barry Loudermilk, and currently includes some of East Cobb.
The proposed 11th district would include some of Cherokee County and all of Bartow, Pickens and Gordon counties.
The map, proposed on Friday, would take the 6th District out of East Cobb completely. Some of the area is currently in the 6th and is represented by first-term Republican Rich McCormick.
Instead, the 7th District would include much of what is now in the 6th—North Fulton, Forsyth and Dawson c0unties, plus some of Hall and Lumpkin counties.
The proposed 11th District would include all of East Cobb and Marietta as well as the Town Center area and I-75 corridor north of Smyrna.
That would likely make the 11th an even stronger Republican district than the 6th. Cobb Democratic commissioner Jerica Richardson has announced her candidacy in the 6th, and she has appeared at events in more conservative reaches of the district.
Richardson was drawn out of her East Cobb home when the legislature reapportioned seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in 2021. Richardson and her two Democratic colleagues voted to invoke home rule and honor maps drawn by the Cobb delegation, an action that’s currently before a Cobb Superior Court judge.
In a social media message Friday, Richardson issued a statement saying that “these maps are an affront to the idea of fair representation and fly in the face of the judge’s order to the state.”
She referenced a similar action in Alabama, where Republican lawmakers under a court order created a second black-majority district in that state.
“My hope is they will see the error of their ways and fix these maps again before the judge’s Dec. 8 deadline,” Richardson said of the Georgia GOP lawmakers.
“If they do not, then I would support further legal challenges until the core message of the judge’s order is fulfilled.”
Nine of Georgia’s 14 Congressional districts are represented by Republicans, and eight seats are majority-white.
The judge ordered that a majority-black Congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta be created. But the map proposed Friday would not do that.
Instead, it would add a minority-white district, keep the number of majority-black districts at four and leave one district that doesn’t have a racial majority.
That’s the current 7th District represented by Democrat Lucy McBath, who left the 6th District after 2021 reapportionment. It would have a strong Republican majority under the proposed map, and would take out all of Gwinnett County that she now represents.
The legislature also was ordered to create several majority-black legislative districts in the Atlanta and Macon areas.
The Georgia General Assembly has had Republican majorities since 2005. Currently the GOP has a 102-78 advantage in the House, and a 33-23 majority in the Senate.
Maps enacted in 2021 split East Cobb into the 6th and 11th districts.
The House on Friday voted out a House map along partisan lines proposed by Republican leaders in that chamber, and it will be sent to the Senate.
GOP State Reps. Sharon Cooper, John Carson and Don Parsons, who have East Cobb constituencies, voted in favor.
Voting against was State Rep. Solomon Adesanya, a first-term Democrat who represents District 43 in East Cobb.
Three redrawn districts in the House would pit Democratic incumbents against one another, including current Cobb delegation Chairwoman Teri Anulewicz and Doug Stoner.
Adesanya said in a social media message that “rather than doing the right thing, this time, they targeted our White Democrats, coupling members in three different House seats, which, essentially under their map, three Democrats will have to go, and three Democrats will remain. The Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives must know their time as a majority is nearing the end. They are desperate to cling on to power.”
Senate Republicans on Friday also passed a map that would add two majority-black districts, and that will go on to the House.
Committee meetings are scheduled for Monday for the Congressional maps.
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Workers are still putting some of the finishing touches on windows and the exterior as we’re a couple weeks away from the official opening of Press Waffle Co. at Avenue East Cobb.
It’s occupying one of the new “jewel box” buildings that’s a key part of the retail center’s overhaul. Owner Keith Ginel told East Cobb News this week that the first day of business is Friday, Dec. 15, kicking off a weekend of special events, discounts and entertainment.
A ribbon-cutting takes place at 9 a.m. Friday, with the first 100 customers receiving free swag bags. Live Christmas music takes place on the patio from 4-7 and all day there will be photo booth “post and tag” opportunities for special discounts.
That latter promotion continues all weekend. On Saturday, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church musicians will perform live music on the patio from 12-1, and from 4-7 Walton HS will do the honors in the same place.
Sunday’s musicians are from Pope HS and will be featured from 2-3 p.m.
Press Waffle Co., which began as a food truck venture in St. Louis in 2016 and vaulted into fame via the television show “Shark Tank,” has seven locations in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Colorado.
The 1,200-square-foot space at the jewel box is the company’s first venue in Georgia. Gitel and his wife Niki are East Cobb residents and franchisees. Press Waffle, which features Belgian-style “Liège” waffles handmade (from dough, not batter) on-site.
There are a variety of sweet and savory options (including chicken and waffles, customizable toppings and a waffle ice cream sandwich), along with locally roasted coffee and espresso.
Press Waffle is partnering with Marietta-based Cool Beans Coffee Roasters and Rock House Farm & Creamery in Newton County.
Updates are being posted at the restaurant’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
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Starting Friday and continuing into the new year is one of East Cobb’s most notable neighborhood holiday lights displays.
The Fox Family of the Clary Lakes subdivision in Northeast Cobb will be turning on a dazzling array of lights, accompanied and synchronized by music and even an animated skating pond.
The display, which takes about a month to put together and test, runs through Jan. 7, which is the Orthodox Christmas (resident Karen Fox is Greek Orthodox).
The hours are from 6-11 p.m. at the Fox home at 2994 Clary Hill Court (accessible via McPherson Road, just north of Post Oak Tritt Road; see map below).
This is the 16th year for the display, and Fox said that Santa will make visits on Friday and/or Saturday evenings beginning Dec. 10, weather permitting.
The weather could be an issue as the display gets underway, with a wet weekend in store. Fox said on a social media posting Thursday that “we are hoping to be at about 90 percent ready [Friday] evening, weather permitting. We will not put out any of our vintage items that can’t get wet if it is raining.”
She said a Facebook page dedicated to the display is providing weather and scheduling updates, including a playlist of the music that visitors can listen to in their cars on 88.3FM. Here’s what you’ll hear this year:
1. Amazing Grace-Yule
2. Christmas Canon-Trans-Siberian Orchestra
3. Christmas Eve Sarajevo-Trans-Siberian Orchestra
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