Main Street Alliance publishes wish list
A group of Sandy Springs business owners are reminding the public of their vision for the city’s downtown while the city works to complete its master plan. The business owners call the previous efforts at downtown development “well-intentioned but ineffective” and say the city has a “difficult regulatory environment.” The business owners are part of the Main Street Alliance, a group of 30 companies that own 130 acres of property in downtown Sandy Springs… Alliance member Kirk Demetrops said the group felt the need to release a shorter, simpler version of its 2011 report because of the renewed focus on downtown development. “We wanted to reinforce that we think there’s a very simple set of solutions for downtown Sandy Springs, and to diverge from that, we think, would be a mistake,” Demetrops said… Originally Published in the Sandy Springs Reporter Read More...
read moreCity Hall search shows challenge of building downtown
Sandy Springs City Council members in January asked the city staff to see if there is a better site for a future a City Hall than the property the city owns on Johnson Ferry Road. The two companies that submitted ideas said they faced a daunting task. MidCity Real Estate Partners principal Kirk Demetrops, whose proposal was rejected, said the process shows how difficult it will be for the city to turn a cluttered stretch of Roswell Road into a downtown… Originally Published in the Sandy Springs Reporter Read More...
read more2010 in Sandy Springs: parks, bridges, a new ceremony
The property was supposed to go to the dogs. Vines and bamboo covered the 27 acres on the edge of Bull Sluice Lake. Nobody thought much about the land in an out-of-the-way spot at the end of beat-up Morgan Falls Road. City officials figured it would be a good place for residents to exercise their pets… A group of property owners in downtown Sandy Springs formed a new group intended to develop a common vision for the city’s commercial center. Mimms Enterprises CEO Lonnie Mimms Jr., who helped pull the group together, said the organization hoped to make the area more than a speed bump on the commute from homes in Cobb County to jobs in the medical district nicknamed Pill Hill. “How do you take it back from commuter traffic?” Mimms asked. “There obviously is no easy answer, or it would have been done.” On Sept. 7, the organization, which included developers such as Kirk Demetrops and Jan Saperstein, presented its plan to the city officials. Mayor Eva Galambos hailed the presentation as “the beginning of a new world.”… Originally Published in the Sandy Springs Reporter Read More...
read moreMain Street Alliance adds input on new ‘heart’ of city
Representatives of 30 Sandy Springs commercial and retail property owners, organized as the Main Street Alliance, presented a vision for developing a downtown heart for the city to Sandy Springs City Council on Sept. 7. Mayor Eva Galambos declared it to be “the beginning of a new world.”… Along with Morganstern, who is former chair of the Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber, the Alliance members presenting to the mayor and council were: Alliance chairman Lonnie Mimms, whose company owns 485,243 square feet of retail space in four shopping centers on 40.65 acres in the city; Patti Pearlberg, vice president of Coro Realty Advisors, which owns two shopping centers in the designated area with a total of 160,324 square feet on 18,5 acres; Jan Saperstein, general partner of Sandy Springs Plaza shopping center, who controls 126,000 square feet of retail space on 8.72 acres in the heart of the city; and Kirk Demetrops, partner in Mid City Partners and former president of The Griffin Company, who controls 85,556 square feet of space on 5.24 acres on Roswell Road where the Bank of America building is located… Originally Published in the Sandy Springs Reporter Read More...
read moreDowntown’s traffic troubles call for circular logic
I don’t want to see Sandy Springs going around in circles about how to deal with traffic problems. However, I would like the city to seriously consider roundabouts (also known as traffic circles) and maybe even some jug handles. I will explain that just a little later. But first, an explanation of how all this came up. We recently held a panel discussion that included three commercial/retail developers (Lonnie Mimms, CEO of Mimms Enterprises; Jan Saperstein, owner of Sandy Springs Plaza; and Kirk Demetrops, principal of MidCity Real Estate Partners), Nancy Leathers, director of Community Development for Sandy Springs, and Trisha Thompson, zoning chair for the Sandy Springs Council of Neighborhoods… Originally Published in the Sandy Springs Reporter Read More...
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