Citizens group leader: Developer in talks with Sprayberry Crossing owners

Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center

Citizens living near a longstanding East Cobb eyesore got some encouraging news Thursday night: The owner of the blighted Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center is in talks with a developer.

That’s according to Joe Glancy, moderator of the Sprayberry Crossing Action group on Facebook, who said in a post to its 4,635 followers that there’s a “tentative agreement to redevelop—I say tentative because nothing is set in stone and we are in the very early stages.”

Glancy, who organized a town hall meeting last March about the shopping center, said he’s met with executives from the development firm—which he did not identify—and which asked to gain more input from other nearby residents in the next week.

Glancy said the development firm “is reputable, their interest is sincere and I believe, that although it’s difficult to please everyone, most members of the community will be pleased with what the firm is capable of.”

He called the discussions “a ray of hope” and said he would “share more information as things progress.”

Sprayberry Crossing
Joe Glancy leading a town hall meeting about Sprayberry Crossing at Sprayberry High School in March 2018. (ECN file)

Among those community leaders is Shane Spink. He’s meeting with the developer next Wednesday and told East Cobb News that “I think they are being smart by reaching out to the community with their ideas on what they are looking to do” with the 16 acres on Sandy Plains Road and Piedmont Road.

UPDATE: On Friday Glancy said the developer is eyeing a mixed-use project for the property, but there’s nothing more detailed at this point beyond the concept.

For many years residents near the decaying retail center have urged county officials and the owners to take action.

Most of the businesses have long vacated the premises. Citizens have complained that the former bowling alley has been a spot for criminal activity.

Even after Cobb commissioners imposed a “blight tax” on the property last year, little has happened.

Last August, a Cobb judge ordered NAI Brannen Goddard, the Atlanta real estate agency that owns Sprayberry Crossing, to clean up a portion of the property. The most Brannen Goddard could be taxed according to the remediation plan is around $21,000 for 2019.

Earlier this spring, frustrated citizens posted photos of themselves with signs on the Sprayberry Crossing Action page, trying to shame Brannen Goddard into action.

The Sprayberry Crossing property also has been included on a redevelopment list by Cobb commissioners, meaning a developer could be eligible for tax abatements (like Kroger at the MarketPlace Terrell Mill under construction on Powers Ferry Road).

Glancy said he said he’s withholding more details for now “because the developer has been willing to be open, to communicate and to show progress. As such I’m willing to extend them the courtesy of letting them manage the roll out until they are ready.

“This has been a very long time coming. I hope and believe the community will continue to show the same character and courtesy that this group has demonstrated over the previous 30 months.”

 

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Residents urged to ‘stay engaged’ during Sprayberry Crossing meeting

Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center
East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker

Several hundred Northeast Cobb residents living near the run-down Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center turned out Wednesday night to hear county and elected officials sympathize with their plight to rid their community of a long-standing eyesore.

Although they explained an ongoing process to get the property owner to comply with a new “blight tax” ordinance and urged the citizens to keep applying public pressure, some in attendance in the theater at Sprayberry High School weren’t always satisfied with the answers they got.

That’s because they were told that despite their frustrations, the property owner, NAI Brannen Goddard, can’t be forced to sell the 17 acres at 2692 Sandy Plains Road that has sat nearly vacant for the last two decades.

JoAnn Birrell, Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center.
Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell

“We have tried to market this property for years,” District 3 Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell told the standing-room-only crowd. “The owners have property rights. We can’t force them to sell. But we can enforce the code.”

Commercial property owners cites for substandard properties under the new ordinance, passed last fall by the commissioners, could be subject to seven times the county general fund millage rate value of their properties.

Some residents groaned when they heard that the maximum NAI Brannen Goddard could be taxed is $17,000. That’s because of the eight parcels making up Sprayberry Crossing, only one of them, the site of a long-closed bowling alley, would be subject to the blight tax. Its assessed value is around $367,000.

But it’s an involved process, ultimately requiring a court ruling to assess the tax. Cobb community development director Dana Johnson said that process is about halfway through.

Dana Johnson, Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center
Cobb community development director Dana Johnson: “There is no code for ugly. I wish there was.”

For now, only the bowling alley land is eligible for blight tax action since criminal activity has been documented. Johnson said dozens of law enforcement calls have been made in recent years to the site at the back of the Sprayberry Crossing site, and alleged gang activity also has taken place there.

The four other buildings on the property remain much as they did after the retail center began losing tenants in the 1990s, especially a Bruno’s supermarket.

A few businesses are there, but the parking lot is riddled with potholes, walls and doors have holes in them and power lines have come down.

The property owner was invited to attend the meeting Wednesday but did not show up.

Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center

Resident Lynn Palazzo asked Birrell how the county could impose something more than “marginal compliance” after so many years. She also asked what the community’s options are as the blight tax process is underway.

“Your options are to stay engaged and keep doing what you’re doing tonight,” Birrell said.

Palazzo responded that “none of that appears to be working,” and the crowd erupted with applause. Birrell reminded her that the ordinance is still new.

Cobb commission chairman Mike Boyce, who said he has toured the former bowling alley and “I understand what your concerns are,” said the county has to be careful in what it says publicly with ongoing negotiations.

“Your community voice makes a huge difference,” he said. “Why it hasn’t happened in this case, I have no idea.”

Joe Glancy, a resident who started the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook Group 14 months ago to galvanize public action, said NAI Brannen Goddard is a well-connected, savvy real estate firm that is waiting to sell to maximize its investment.

The property owner, Glancy said, has chosen to be “selective” in what is shared with the community. He urged his fellow citizens “to make life a little more difficult for the property owner.

Joe Glancy, Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group
Joe Glancy: “It is up to all of us to make everyone involved uncomfortable until this is resolved.”

“How do we engage them and make them want to be done with us and move on?”

Birrell said she met with a potential developer of the property in 2015 and “was ready to close” on a deal that would require rezoning. But NAI Brannen Goddard, she said, “wouldn’t sell.”

The county has estimated that Sprayberry Crossing has a current estimated value of $3.4 million. When a resident asked if the county would “just buy the land” for a public park, he told her it’s unlikely that would happen in a commercial area with high real estate value, and stated a figure estimated between $14 million and $17 million.

When he quipped that citizens should raise the money, a man walked up to the front of the theater holding up a dollar bill and gave it to Glancy, as the crowd broke out in laughter.

Also complicating the Sprayberry Crossing property is that a cemetery is located there. Associate county attorney Debbie Blair spelled out another laborious process for identifying next of kin of those buried there, as well as two public hearings before any exhumations and relocations can occur. Sandy Plains Baptist Church has offered to provide perpetual care.

Glancy was at his most adamant when explaining that NAI Brannen Goddard understandably wants to sell the land with the cemetery issue resolved.

However, he said, “they bought a shopping center that had a cemetery in it. . . They cannot be excused for using that as an excuse for not selling the property.

“It is up to all of us to make everyone involved uncomfortable until this is resolved.”

Johnson said “remediation” discussions with the property owner are continuing, but declined to elaborate. If terms cannot be worked out, he, said, the county attorney’s office would prepare to go to court for a blight tax ruling.

“There is no code for ugly,” he said. “I wish there was.”

 

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Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center subject of March public meeting

Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center

A citizens group that’s been trying to address the decaying Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center is organizing a public meeting next month to bring more attention to the issue.

Joe Glancy of the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group said Friday the meeting is scheduled for March 21 at 6 p.m. at the theater of Sprayberry High School (2525 Sandy Plains Road).

He said plans are to invite county and state officials, but didn’t have any other details.

Located on 13 acres on Sandy Plains Road at East Piedmont Road, Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center was built 40 years ago, in 1978, with more than 140,000 square feet of space and with contemporary cedar trim design. The anchor stores were supermarkets—first an Ogletree’s and then a Bruno’s—and a bowling alley also operated there.

Today, it houses only a few businesses and organizations in run-down buildings that have been in that state since the 1990s. The parking lot is bumpy and riddled with potholes, and nearby residents have long complained about it being a community eyesore.

One of those residents is Glancy, who oversees the group’s Facebook page that has nearly 3,800 members.

Last month, he conducted a survey of group members to decide how to move forward. Glancy said most of the respondents preferred a public meeting. He wrote on the group’s page:

“This year, it is time to hold people accountable and make our voices heard. Don’t let your county representatives tell you how much they care about this issue – it’s time they showed you.

“As for the ownership, it’s probably time the community organized a communications initiative to make sure the owners are made aware of the level of our frustration.”

There’s a long, drawn-out back story to the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center, complicated by the location of a private cemetery and other issues as detailed last summer by the Cobb County Courier.

 

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