RaceTrac proposed on former site of McAfee House in NE Cobb Archives

NE Cobb rezoning historic preservation efforts

Not long after the historic McAfee House was relocated by preservationists to Cherokee County, the two-acre site at Bells Ferry Road and Barrett Parkway is being proposed for a commercial use.

And not for the first time.

Preliminary filings with the Cobb Zoning Division indicate that RaceTrac, Inc. is seeking rezoning for a fuel station and convenience store where a home with Civil War connections once stood.

RaceTrac has hired prominent Cobb zoning attorney Kevin Moore to handle the application, which is scheduled for a first hearing on Aug. 5 before the Cobb Planning Commission.

The 2.009 acres at 2595 Bells Ferry Road and across from Bells Ferry Elementary School is owned by The Medford Family Limited Partnership and is currently zoned Planned Shopping Center (PSC).

According to the filings (you can read them here), RaceTrac will be asking for the land to be rezoned to Neighborhood Activity Center (NAC). The fuel station and convenience store would be open 24/7, according to the filings.

RaceTrac also is seeking variances to waive the rear setback from 30 feet to eight feet and to increase the maximum amount of impervious surface from 70 to 74 feet (see site plan below), according to the filings.

The zoning staff hasn’t yet conducted a full analysis or made a recommendation, but said in its summary that the NRC zoning “will permit a use that is more suitable to the Subject Property” which is surrounded by other commercially-zoned development.

“The proposed zoning will allow for a higher and better use of the Subject Property,” according to the preliminary zoning staff summary.

In 2023, a car wash was proposed for the Medford Family LP land, and the Cobb Planning Commission recommended approval. But the request was withdrawn by the applicant due to what it said were other business obligations.

That was as Cobb Landmarks, a preservation non-profit, was renewing efforts to have the McAfee House removed.

Cobb Landmarks had been talking with the property owner since 2019 to find a way to relocate and preserve the house, and has acknowledged that “the house and land are not protected through local zoning or historic designation.”

The McAfee House, which dates to the 1840s, was the headquarters for Union Gen. Kenner Garrard, whose cavalry troops guarded the Noonday Creek valley after Northern troops seized Big Shanty in June 1864, in the run-up to the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

(Garrard’s Confederate cavalry opponent during that time, according to the Georgia Historical Society, was Gen. Joseph Wheeler, namesake of Wheeler High School in East Cobb.)

“Reportedly, blood stains remain visible on the upstairs bedroom floorboards, hidden beneath modern carpeting,” Cobb Landmarks wrote in a fundraising appeal earlier this year.

“As one of the oldest surviving structures in the Atlanta area and the last pre-Civil War building in Cobb’s Town Center area, the McAfee House is an important piece of Georgia history.”

The pine house was facing demolition when Cobb Landmarks offered to sell the home to anyone who wanted it for $1. A Cherokee County couple, Lee and Brittani Lusk, were the buyers in February, and they had it transported in three pieces in May to their private property in Ball Ground.

According to a local Civil War blog, the Lusks are in the real estate industry and own a wedding and special events venue, also in Ball Ground, and have invested in other historic structures.

While some locals were hoping the McAfee House could have been kept and restored inside Cobb (like the Powers-Jackson Cabin), the cost of the Medford LP land figures to be very desirable.

According to Cobb property tax records, the Medford property has an appraised value of $749,750.