The Dunwoody City Council in a split 4-2 vote approved three special land use permits to allow a developer to build a restaurant and retail center in Dunwoody Village.
The March 13 vote gives the go-ahead for developer Jacob Lang to begin an environmental assessment on the less than one-acre piece of property at 5465 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, where a full-service Chevron gas station and auto repair shop are currently located. If the environmental studies and cleanup are deemed affordable and safe, the developer will plan to start building within two years.
Lang has not stated publicly what businesses would be located at the site, but said Chipotle and Moe’s restaurants have showed interest in the past.
Questions about cross access from Chamblee-Dunwoody Road through the current gas station property and to the adjacent Dunwoody Village property have been raised by Regency Centers, owners of Dunwoody Village. Regency Centers argues the easements, dating back to 1970, were granted for “complimentary use” such as a gas station and shopping center, and not “competitive use” such as retail and retail.
Lang told the council at the March 13 meeting he believes he is on firm legal ground should Regency Centers decide to sue him concerning the easements.
“If Regency decides to sue … I feel very confident we will win,” Lang said. “Either they will sue or we will see if they were just pushing me around.” Lang has said he believes Regency Centers is using the easements argument to argue more parking is needed in Dunwoody Village.
No one from Regency Centers attended the March 13 meeting.
Lang plans to demolish the Chevron building and construct a new 8,735 square-foot building with a 2,503 square-foot restaurant and 6,232 square-feet of retail. The owner of the Chevron station property is seeking a bigger site for a new auto repair shop.
Voting in favor of approving the SLUPS were Mayor Denis Shortal and Councilmembers Doug Thompson, Pam Tallmadge and Terry Nall. Voting no were Councilmembers John Heneghan and Lynn Deutsch.
The most important SLUP allows for the property to have more parking spaces than allowed in the Dunwoody Village Overlay District, upping the number from 26 spaces to 36 spaces.
Too much building in too small space. Building too close to street and its north border. Going in and out will create traffic issues.
How nice it will be to have more options in the heart of our town. It looks like they’ve done a nice job keeping with current facades in the Village. I hope the right turn into the center is engineered better than current right turn — I only use current “Chevron Easement” to prevent running over the curb or hitting a car awaiting the light to enter Chamblee Dunwoody Road.
A respectful building, generally unoffensive. However, what is with the snake sidewalk on Chamblee Dunwoody? Hasn’t the City established a streetscape guideline here (paving materials, lighting, benches, etc?)
If not, we are way behind the curve here. We need to match or beat the standards that Sandy Springs has.
Hi, JM. Good question. According to the city, the developer is curving the sidewalk because of two utility poles on Chamblee Dunwoody Road.
This is where we differ from Sandy Springs. Sandy Springs would ask the developer to move the poles (which Georgia Power will do) to maintain the integrity of the streetscape. It wouldn’t be a major cost relative to undergrounding. This is the town center, need to keep high standards here.
I think it would be cool to leave the building as is and make it into a restaurant like Diesel over in Roswell. So much more curb appeal and neighborhood friendly like village burger.
Love Kim’s idea!! Hoping no more chain restaurants fill the new space
Good for us that we have at least created the opportunity for this to move forward. I think we need to stop using traffic as the catch-all excuse for not approving development that in my opinion will have a positive impact on the City. Another dining option is always good in my book, particularly here, in our city core.
Traffic is an issue though. Placing a building there with 3 retail spaces in lieu of 1 tenant obviously will create traffic issues esp with driveway close to cvs driveway. The cvs plaza is tough to get into and placed too many retail locations in that small spot. This drive to put as much retail as possible is simply due to a developer wanting to shove as much as they can there. We should be picky and not stupidly approve development that is too dense. Replace it with one retail spot. One could argue that we have too much retail in dunw- stores are constantly coming and going. The azteca plaza has chronic store turnover as do the shoppes and the plaza behind mcdonalds on jett ferry. Everyone thinks that it would be great to have all sorts of stores in village but we don’t support them all as seen by turnover.
I agree, no more chain restaurants! We need an independently (chef) owned, reasonably priced, innovative place to eat!!