The Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods returned from its two month summer break on Aug. 13 to hear a report on the ongoing Moores Mill Road extension and shopping center saga. City Councilmember Felicia Moore, who has been working on the project for a decade, said she believed that demolition of the abandoned shopping center at the corner of Moores Mill and Bolton roads would happen in the first quarter of 2016.
Moore said said Edens, a South Carolina-based development company, is ready to move forward with the $40 million Moores Mill project, which would include a 45,000-square-foot Publix supermarket, retail shops and apartments.
Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, has already committed $500,000 for the road extension that would create a signalized entrance to the mixed-use project, but Moore said an additional $800,000 is needed to create the extension that would connect Moore’s Mill to Marietta Boulevard.
Moore said she is awaiting word on possible funding from the Atlanta Regional Commission in September. She said if that didn’t work, she had other funding ideas including using money from the recently-approved infrastructure bond.
Back in June, the Atlanta City Council voted to provide $800,000 to help complete the project since federal dollars for the extension are being held up in Congress, which has not reauthorized a transportation bill. Moore had ushered through the ordinance to use money from the city’s transportation impact fee fund before the developer walked away, but wound up voting against her own legislation when an amendment was added by Councilmember Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Bottoms’ amendment allowed all the City Council members to dip into the transportation impact fee fund account for projects in their own districts. The council was warned that spreading the unallocated impact fee funding to all the districts was not allowed under current city guidelines and could face a legal challenge. The council ultimately repealed the legislation.
“It’s been a big song and dance,” Moore said, “but the project is going to happen.”