Storage facility proposed for closed East Cobb movie theater

A developer who is seeking to convert the former Park 12 Cobb Cinema in East Cobb into a storage facility wants some additional time to prepare its case.

On Monday, Stein Investment Group sent a letter to the Cobb Zoning Office seeking a delay in the proposal’s initial hearings to July.

Stein’s request for a special-land use permit is listed on the Cobb Planning Commission agenda for next Tuesday, June 1.

The zoning staff has recommended approval with some conditions. but Garvis Sams, an attorney for Stein, wrote in the letter that the delay is needed “in order to fully complete all tasks with which are charged.”

He wasn’t more specific than that.

In addition to a SLUP (site plan here), which is required for self-storage facilities in unincorporated Cobb, Stein also is amending a previous zoning decision for the general commercial category that had been approved for the theater.

The SLUP would be heard by the Planning Commission on July 6, and the “Other Business” item would be heard by Cobb commissioners on July 16.

Park 12 Cobb closed at the end of 2020, more than three years after a community fight to keep it open as a movie theater.

Nearby residents opposed a rezoning case to turn the property on Gordy Parkway at Shallowford Road into a Lidl grocery store. Some wanted to have movies nearby, and others were concerned about traffic, and the Cobb Board of Commissioners turned down the rezoning request in September 2017.

At the time, Lidl attorney Parks Huff said that “this is not a difficult decision. This is technically a property rights issue and needs to be approved.”

The cinema owner, Georgia Theatre Company, had expressed a desire at the time to sell the property.

Park 12 Cobb briefly reopened last fall after COVID-19 closures, but GTC made the decision to permanently shutter that cinema as well as others in its Georgia and the southeast region.

Another self-storage facility sits nearby, as part of the Sandy Plains MarketPlace retail center on the former site of Mountain View Elementary School.

Meanwhile, a Lidl store not far down in the Sandy Plains Road corridor would anchor the proposed Sprayberry Crossing redevelopment, that’s slated to be heard yet again by the planning board in June.

The Planning Commission voted to hold the case for further traffic details after a second full hearing in as many months.

The East Cobb Church proposed mixed-use development also was delayed to June.

The full agenda for next Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting can be found here.

It begins at 9 a.m. in the 2nd floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta.

There will be limited in-person seating due to social distancing protocols, but the meeting will be live-streamed on the county’s Facebook Live and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.

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