Alpharetta has received responses from several developers interested in the private development at the city center project. These are the four outparcels, inauspiciously colored green on many site plans, that will be developed into multi-story mixed use buildings. The companies responded to the city’s request for qualifications (RFQ) process. And while their responses are private at this time, the list of participating companies provides some insight into the type of project that is likely coming to downtown Alpharetta. Here’s the list.
North American Properties – The guys building the massive $600 million Avalon project. They seem to be interested in everything Alpharetta at this point. They’ve got a proposal in to the city for a convention center at Avalon that would be funded with increased taxes. And they had a hand in the Gwinnett Tech campus across the street. Their interested in downtown Alpharetta is curious. The city should be careful putting all their eggs into one developer’s basket.
Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates – Perhaps the most serious bid of them all. Smallwood was previously selected as the master planner for the entire city center project including the municipal buildings like city hall. They would be intimately familiar with what the city wants here. Smallwood choose to include with their bid the following partnering companies:
MidCity Real Estate Partners – Office developers with some mixed use experience.
South City Partners – Worked on downtown Kennesaw’s mixed use project that included apartments and was bonded. They do a lot of apartments and student housing.
Morris & Fellows – Experience at Vickery in South Forsyth. They also bought foreclosed assets at downtown Woodstock’s mixed use development. Alpharetta has long coveted Woodstock’s project. Two senior city staffers in Alpharetta have Woodstock’s planning department on their resume.
Selig Enterprises – Huge Atlanta retail developer with some mixed use experience.
SF Capital – Largely a residential developer of single family homes.
Callen Group – Can’t find anything on this bidder.
There are a few companies that were not involved in the process that one might have expected.
Solomon Holdings -Alpharetta-based developer of senior housing projects such as Dogwood Forest. They have no experience in projects like city center yet were selected as the previous city center’s contractor without a bid process. Of course those plans failed many years ago. Since then principals with Solomon have contributed money to political candidates in Alpharetta. And they participated in a previous RFQ process the city held last year for this project that was withdrawn. Thankfully Solomon is out of the running this time.
Also in last year’s pulled RFQ bit missing this time are Marthasville Development who developed Riverview Landing in Mableton and M.J. Lant Developments from Vickery.
So we know who might be involved but nothing else. Eventually we’ll know the structure of a potential deal. And of course the elephant in the room with this project is apartments. They’ve not been talked about openly among Alpharetta’s Council but are likely to be a part of this project. If they appear supporters will most certainly play the “vibrant downtown” trump card while opponents point to the city’s CLUP limiting them. It’ll be an interesting discussion.