Over the past 10 to 15 years, Smyrna, Georgia has become a thriving young town, where residents average a young 32 years of age, and families make up just 51.7 percent of the population. Smyrna’s youthful, single character makes it a demographically attractive community, with a median household income of over $57,000, which is substantially higher than the U.S. median of just under $50,000 a year.

Smyrna’s visionaries - Mayor A. Max Bacon and the City Council foresaw many changes coming to their growing community. As Smyrna has evolved into a charming and bustling city of over 47,000 people, the mayor and council began to lay plans to attract housing developers that would in turn attract retail developers.

Creating a downtown core
Located northeast of Atlanta in Cobb County, Smyrna started life as a bedroom community with no downtown or city center. Since the beginning of his term in office, Bacon has pushed to change the community’s sleepy, lifeless image. He instituted a moratorium on apartment construction, under which all housing built within the city limits would until further notice be single family or condominium and for sale.

Next, the city leaders rebuilt the public infrastructure downtown. They strategically selected an area near the local government buildings and put up a new library, a new community center, a new town hall, and a village green. People were beginning to take notice.

Retailers and developers ­follow
The new public buildings led retailers to open new stores in the area. That stimulated a mixed-use development called Smyrna Village, which included retail, restaurants, and housing built around a village green that could be used for concerts, fireworks and community events. Bacon persuaded a developer to take on the Smyrna Village project, and once it was complete, other developers were no longer hard to find.

The additions to Smyrna caused housing development to take off. Near the entrance to town, an old subdivision that once found itself on the wrong side of a set of railroad tracks has been completely redeveloped with new and renovated housing. On the other side of Smyrna, new housing units worth upwards of $450,000 each is replacing old post war bungalows worth around $70,000.

The newly created city center has re-invented Smyrna into a desirable location for developers. Today, a handful of ambitious developments are taking shape. One of the largest is the $100 million mixed-use development set along the main road leading into Smyrna called Jonquil Village.

Given a strong identity as the “Gateway to Smyrna,” it will have a distinctive brick structure at its entrance with signage stating – “Welcome to Smyrna: The Jonquil City.”

The city leaders are utilizing a creative tax policy that pays for infrastructure improvements and allows developers to put all of their investment funds into their developments instead of setting significant amounts aside for infrastructure projects. The idea has ensured a steady supply of developers.

Jonquil Village will be the first development in Smyrna, Georgia to take advantage of the new tax incentive, which is called a TAD or Tax Allocation District. Under the TAD, the district issues bonds for infrastructure improvements. Those improvements enable private developments to proceed. When the development is complete, the district will contribute dramatically higher property tax revenues to the municipality. The increase in tax revenues will repay the bonds. Once the bonds have been retired, the entire tax amount will become available for traditional property tax uses.

In the case of Jonquil Village, bond proceeds will pay for an underground parking deck that will cost approximately $25 million.

During the daytime, the parking garage will support people who will shop in the stores, eat in the restaurants, and work in the offices that make up the Jonquil Village experience. In the evening, the lot will support people living in the area as well as visitors attending concerts and other events planned for the village green. Once the underground parking deck has been completed, Jonquil Village, currently under design, will sit atop the deck.

All told, Jonquil Village will span 600,000 square feet, not including an assisted living project planned as part of the 11-acre site. The development will feature a major national grocery store and other retail spanning 145,000 square feet. Specialty retail shops and restaurants are planned for the ground floor of the buildings, and a second anchor will balance the grocery store. Most of the buildings will raise five stories with condominiums atop the ground floor ­retailers.

Pedestrian tunnels move through and around the center of the site and encourage pedestrian circulation. A bike path will connect from the front of the site to a pedestrian bridge being built by the city. The bridge will connect to an existing bike trail.

Project has begun
The project has officially broken ground, and excavations and utilities are being installed. With all of the original buildings now removed it is apparent that the site will integrate itself with the surrounding City improvements.

As with all mixed-use development, nothing is easy. Because Atlanta has been designated a non-attainment region by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, projects such as Jonquil Village undergo extra vetting by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the Greater Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA). These groups ensure that the impact of the development on traffic does not harm the region. They may require adjustments of the existing road and traffic control plans.

In the end, the redevelopment will have removed the aged and by this time ugly strip center buildings and replaced it with a pedestrian friendly downtown where new residents can live, work, and find entertainment. Out-of-towners can visit on weekends and holidays or anytime during the week for that matter. The goal is similar to the goals of a hundred different mixed-use projects like this going up in suburbs across the country - to make a suburb into a city that can support jobs, provide dining and entertainment for residents, attract neighbors from surrounding communities, and help to reduce congestion on the highways during the work week.

That’s the goal of the Jonquil City. SLDT