Fuqua Development won a bid in 2020 to redevelop the former Olympic tennis center site next to Stone Mountain by proposing a mixed-use development comparable to the upscale Peachtree Corners Town Center.
An application that the Gwinnett County Planning Commission and Board of Commissioners are expected to take up next month instead proposes a “warehouse club” store, such as a Costco, and three fast-food restaurants.
The application also proposes four apartment buildings with a total of 255 units, a multi-use path and inner pedestrian network for the 31-acre site and an acre of green space.
County Commissioner Ben Ku, who represents the area, will hold a community meeting about the proposal Thursday, from 6-7 p.m., in the Mountain Park Activity Building at 1063 Rockbridge Road SW near Stone Mountain.
“I definitely see a lot of pros and I see a lot of cons,” Ku said. “I have been internally going back and forth on this for years, and so I am looking forward to having the opportunity to have a public dialogue.”
Ku declined to say which stores would come to the site. Jeff Fuqua, principal of Fuqua Development, did not return messages seeking comment.
Although store names do not appear in the renderings, they show a warehouse club store with the design and color scheme of a Costco. One of the fast food restaurants has the orange markings of a Whataburger.
“It seems like this would bring more dollars and attention to this area,” Ku said. “On the negative side, it’s a lot of surface parking, which is not transit oriented development, and is not as grand and aspirational as I was hoping it would be.”
Gwinnett County owns 24 acres of the property, which have lain dormant since the 1996 Olympics. The tennis facility was torn down five years ago. The rest of the property is the parking lot of an old Target store, owned by CK Stone Mountain Parking Lot LLC.
Gwinnett spent $1.2 million on a land swap with DeKalb County in 2016 to acquire the property. Ku said the county would sell its land to Fuqua, contingent on rezoning, for more than the county paid.
The application asks for the land to be rezoned from a general business district to regional mixed use.
The county’s planning and development department recommended the rezoning be approved as long as the development generally conforms with site plans and building elevations submitted last month.
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