Details are emerging on the massive golf entertainment facility planned for the Franklin Gateway area.
The Marietta City Council approved in February selling 17 acres to Drive Shack for $9.5 million.
The judicial/legislative committee approved at its Tuesday meeting the variances Drive Shack is asking for, said city spokeswoman Lindsey Wiles. The item is set to go before the entire council at its April 11 meeting.
Drive Shack, publicly traded as “DS” on the New York Stock Exchange, is in the process of overhauling its business from being a traditional golf course operator to opening and managing golf entertainment-type facilities akin to rival Topgolf.
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The variances the company is asking for are spelled out in a March 19 letter from an attorney handling Drive Shack’s application to build.
They span from allowing poles of up to 160 feet to support nets for driving range nets to disrupting the 50-foot buffer between the building and the Twin Brooks Townhome community.
The letter also reveals that the indoor/outdoor facility of 64,000 square feet will have 96 hitting bays on three floors.
Its build will make for between 150 to 200 construction jobs, and the facility will create hundreds of permanent jobs.
There will be 414 parking spaces for employees and customers.
Tentatively, it will be open Monday through Sunday with proposed hours of 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.
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The address will be 849 Franklin Gateway — the property where it’ll be located was purchased by the city through the 2013 redevelopment bond; at that time the land was 24½ acres.
The city has put its back into billing the area as a neighborhood set for a large transformation.
Atlanta United opened a high-tech training facility there in April and Ikea announced in December that it chose the area as the site of its second metro Atlanta location.
Drive Shack currently doesn't have an open facility. Its first, in Orlando, was set to open at the end of March, according to its 2017 investor presentation published March 7.
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There’s currently no Topgolf in Cobb County.
Golf as a sport has generally seen declining play of 18-hole rounds over the last several years.
Drive Shack said it lost $42.2 million in 2017, compared to a profit a year earlier of $77.3 million. The company reported revenue of $292.6 million last year, down about 2 percent from $298.9 million in 2016.
Staff writer J. Scott Trubey contributed to this story.
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