A small town about 30 minutes southwest of downtown Atlanta is contemplating annexing land to make way for a 1.5 million-square-foot industrial park.
The Fayette County Development Authority is brokering a deal with an undisclosed development team to bring a massive industrial project called “Project Rita” to Tyrone, a town with fewer than 8,000 residents. Scant details on the early-stage proposal were disclosed in a recent Development of Regional Impact (DRI) filing.
The project pitch includes up to five “technology-based” buildings at 2008 Joel Cowan Parkway, a 38-acre parcel north of New Heritage Church of God that the development authority purchased last month for $6.2 million. The land is split among several jurisdictions, including Tyrone, the city of Fairburn and both unincorporated Fayette and Fulton counties.
Credit: Courtesy Town of Tyrone
Credit: Courtesy Town of Tyrone
The DRI filing said the development authority intends to annex the unincorporated Fayette portion of the property into Tyrone. Town Manager Brandon Perkins referred media requests to the development authority. Niki Vanderslice, the authority’s president and CEO, declined to answer specific questions on the project.
“While we have been working on ‘Project Rita,’ we have not yet secured a binding commitment at this time,” she said in an email. “But this rezoning application is part of the process.”
DRIs are a required state analysis for large projects set to impact multiple jurisdictions or an entire region. The filing was made to the Atlanta Regional Commission, which will vet the application and analyze how local infrastructure will be affected.
Atlanta’s Southside has long been an industrial powerhouse centered around the world’s busiest airport. There’s more than 216 million square feet of industrial space near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and south along I-85 and I-75, according to real estate services firm CBRE. At the end of September, those areas had lower vacancy rates than metro Atlanta’s rate of 5.8%.
Annexations are not an uncommon step for industrial developers, especially in smaller cities like Tyrone. Project managers have an easier time clearing red tape and making progress when fewer jurisdictions are involved.
Last month, the nearby city of Hampton — which has roughly the same population as Tyrone — entered into an agreement with Target to bring a massive distribution center to the city. The 1.4 million-square-foot project is contingent upon annexing the entire 173-acre site along Lower Wooley Road into the city limits.
It’s unclear whether the Fayette County Development Authority will offer any incentives to the development team behind “Project Rita.” Since the authority owns the property, it’s possible the developer could receive a property tax abatement through a bond-for-title transaction, a common lease structure in Georgia where a government authority rents land to a developer at a discount.
The DRI said the multi-phase “Project Rita” would take an estimated seven years to bring to fruition.
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