Meeting discussionsStart with a topic.

Miss Hines mentioned the improvements that are coming to Rose Garden Park and u they include a pavilion that a hundred people can be under seating and a new playground and new handicap accessibility there, new volleyball sand volleyball court and some other things. It's going to be a really awesome thing and I'm I'm real proud that um that this council is bringing that forward. Um anybody want to comment on anything on the park or anything about the Black History Month or anything before we get a photo and no? All right. Why you doing that, Mr. Mayor? No, Lonia, I really appreciate you calling in and and uh um yeah, being part of being part of the process and and uh with Miss Castleberry here and her husband and such an important part of our community. So, we have some special special guests here in the front row. Um so, it's a wonderful uh wonderful recognition and start of a great month. I think it's only fitting that Miss Castleberry uh accept that proclamation, all she's done with the community for all the years and keeps Ma beautiful and everything else. Thank you all. Thank you so much for your service. Next on the mayoral report, we have a special recognition of Alphafi Alpha fraternity, the Omacron Mu Lambda chapter. We have several gentlemen from that chapter with us this evening and they do all kinds of good things in our community, including at Campbell High School. They were named alumni chapter of the year, Alphafi Alpha fraternity um at the Alpha Georgia District Association convention held on November 14th of last year. This honor reflects the chapter's outstanding leadership, strong community impact, and commitment to the mission of Alpha Alpha Fraternity Incorporated.

standing out among alumni chapters across Georgia is a significant achievement and a d and a and a testament of the dedication of all of your members and I was visiting with these gentlemen before uh the meeting and hearing about some of the things that they do and the commitment that they have not you have eight different chapters I think you said across metro Atlanta including based in Cobb County. Um so we're very pleased to have you here and have this recognition. Uh Mr. Oglesby did you want to add anything? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, first of all, I want to congratulate you all and, uh, best wishes. We'll say best wishes for your South Regional Competition. I'm sure with the work you've done in this community that you should absolutely be considered, uh, for the award. Uh, also, thank you for commitment to service in general with our students here. Uh, to my understanding, you have about 60 students at Campbell High School alone. Uh, we need more of that from members of our community. So, we appreciate your leadership on that and your example. Uh, most importantly, as a fellow member of the CO panel at Council, I'm a little biased. I think you all would do well. So, bring it home. All right. Uh, and, uh, we'll we'll talk soon in the future about other things we can do to partner as a city with you all to bring more service to the community and to our young men. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Do any of you want to say anything? Mr. Mayor, Mr. Councilman, I would just like to thank you for this opportunity to be recognized by the city for the work we've done. This is our 40th anniversary of being chartered in county and we are using this opportunity to cate. Thank you all very much.

Next on our agenda is something that has been in the works for quite some time and a ton of public input um from this community shephered by MKSK um and Councilman Lindley and the committee many of whom are here and spent a lot of their time volunteering in this effort. This is a presentation of the Smyrna downtown Development Plan by MKSK who is the urban planning and design architecture firm who has done a fantastic job um with this process and and I think you all will like the high level concept that they have come up with based on the input that you've provided. So come on up. Thank you. Uh good evening. Uh thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you council. Uh it is a pleasure to be with you all tonight and present uh this vision for the First Baptist Church uh site. Um for today, what I will do is I'll just uh talk a little bit about the planning process. Then uh you know give you an overview of the great engagement that we had throughout with the community. Then I'll go into the vision for the site. Um walk us through the different components of how we are reimagining uh this fantastic uh portion of downtown. And then as I share the site, I'll pause and I'll give you a fe some of the feedback that we received from the community when we shared this vision at the third public meeting. I'll also end with talking a little bit about implementation and about how to translate this vision, this concept into a real development project that you all can take following the adoption of this plan hopefully tonight. So, first a little bit about the process. We've been working um with city staff um with the community for the last year on this. We divided this into three phases of work.

In the first phase, what we call initiate um we asked big questions of the community. What do you want from downtown? How do you see this site integrating with the rest of downtown? Uh what does it mean uh to redevelop? We talked with stakeholders. Um we mobilized our plan ambassadors. We held our first community meeting. Then as we moved to a second phase, we took all of this feedback and we developed alternatives. And those alternatives were different ways to reimagine the con the site uh and we tested those with the community at a second community meeting. Then we took all of that feedback and we went to a third phase of work where we synthesized it into one uh preferred concept that summarized everything we heard from the community but also what we um found through our own research with market conditions uh and then understanding mobility um implications. All of this is summarized in um very succinct 100page document that is available on the project website right now. Uh it includes all of the visuals uh and the materials that I'll walk through us um tonight. Uh but it has accompanying narrative. It has an full implementation chapter and it has so much more information that you all can peruse as well and is available for the community as we take this plan forward. The plan is very graphic. Um, all of the graphics that I'll show have additional information in this report. It goes into greater detail on the types of things that I'll discuss at a higher level today. And I think one of the the main things about this plan and honestly one of the the the joys in working through this process has been the engagement process and the great reception that we've had from the community. We held three community meetings all at the community center.

The first meeting alone had 250 people. We had about 200 at the second community meeting and 150 at the third community meeting. Uh we also had um a project website downtown Sarna redevelopment. Over the life of that website we had about 13,000 unique visitors who visited the website about 20,000 times. We also uh interviewed um roundts with stakeholders. We had about 70 stakeholders that we had 15 focus group meetings with. We did two online surveys uh which had about 3,200 almost 3,300 responses. The first survey alone had 2,000 responses. These are huge numbers for online engagement. Um and uh you know one of the my favorite parts of this process and we had 20 project ambassadors. Uh these are dedicated folks from the community who volunteered their time to go to community events, attend our public meetings, staff the sign-in sheets uh and really you know become champions for the process. Some of these folks are here today um as well um and it has been a real joy working with them as this process with the pro the help of ambassadors. We attended uh the taste of Smyrna and Jono festival and we had about uh 300 or so folks that we chatted with. So about 17,000 voices engaged in about a year of work. So really fantastic things. Some of the engagement that I'll share today will be focused on the feedback we received at the third community meeting uh in mid November where we shared uh this vision for the site and we had folks tell us what they thought, what they like, what they didn't like. Uh and I'll share some of the results from this last meeting. So I'm going to start with talking a little bit about the vision for the site. So, as we all know, the First Baptist Church site, this is a fantastic redevelopment opportunity for the city.

It's really a once- ina generational opportunity for you all to double the size of downtown. Very rarely does this type of contiguous land right next to your walkable core come up for redevelopment. And very few times do you have the opportunity to purchase this and then to shape how it continues to grow. As we think through the redevelopment, um, one of the things that drew us the most to the site was the historic chapel. As part of your purchase agreement, this chapel is to be preserved and reused uh, as a public use. We think the chapel is the heart of any future redevelopment. It has been part of the community for more than a hundred years and it is something that really uh, becomes the focus of any future redevelopment for the site. It's what brings it its authenticity and will really will ground it and help anchor this district. We think there's an opportunity to do an expansion to the site that still honors that historic architecture. I'll share a little bit about how that can be placed, but really showcase and open up the chapel from what is currently a hidden backside uh into a future green space. The other organizing element for this vision uh relies around connectivity. One of the things that people told us through this process is that they do not want to see an old downtown and a new downtown. They wanted everything to feel part of a single experience. And for that uh we are proposing what we're calling the Jono mile but can really be shaped later after this process into any nomenclature. Uh the really the point here is a really high quality trail that is beyond a path. Uh it is a linear green that connects uh the market village, your village green um to the rest of the site.

Uh and it is be something that can become more than a trail itself. Um you know, not unlike the belt line nearby, but you know, kind of similar to some of my favorite trail examples, a cultural trail and the Monon Greenway in Indiana where they use unique branding, lighting, uh wayfinding, uh you know, sculpture, public art, it all become comes together to become a destination in it of itself. We think there's a great opportunity to make this type of investment in the public realm in downtown to help connect the market village to the site. And the reason that this is important is because as we think through redevelopment of the site for us and for the community, it became uh crucial for this to be a vibrant, walkable extension of downtown. And we know as as urban planners um you know, as as folks involved in uh in redevelopment that that vibrancy really starts at the ground level. This is where we experience, you know, walkability. Uh, and this is where you all as a city have control. You know, you can set the stage with great streets, great open spaces, great squares, parks, and really set the tone for the redevelopment with your investments in place through the Jono Mile. What this select uh signifies to the development community is that you have a highquality public realm that needs to be matched with a high quality development. And that vibrancy doesn't end at the sidewalk. That really only sets the tone. However, the vibrancy is really crucial at the ground level. And this is where you can influence the future development.

You want a well-designed ground level that has a great mix of uses, has good urban design, so you have something interesting to walk to that uh encourages meandering, and you have to work with a development community, have a solid tenant mix that really brings in the types of businesses that one, the community told us that they like to see, but two, businesses that you all know will contribute to what's already here in your market village where you have great collection of long-standing businesses. And to make that happen, what happens above the ground level is really crucial. You know what the development that occurs there, whether it's residential, office, hospitality, you know, all of that can be influenced by you all, but will be shaped by the market and by the development market. And what happens there will allow for that ground level to occur in a way that you all want it in the way that the community told us that they'd like to see, which is more restaurants, more retail, and more local businesses. And we know that to get to this you have to have a little bit of market flexibility. Uh and that you know because people told us that they want certain things and they expect certain highquality things from this development especially after a process like this. You know we heard from the community the number one thing they'd like to see more restaurants more retail making downtown a destination bringing high quality dining more things to do downtown. How do you make this work? It really is by bringing residents and housing to the site to support some of that redevelopment. Make it feasible from a development perspective. Have an appropriate amount of parking and a well-connected downtown. Making sure that people can, you know, conveniently park here. It doesn't have to become a parking district, but it has to be convenient and easy and intuitive.

And then to support the redevelopment, think through other complimentary uses like hospitality or office that will support those businesses um in you know in during lunchtime or during slower times when residential or visitors don't support it. And this is at the back of our head as we think through all of the designs. Um and some of the things that we use to organize how we think through the site um is what we call the our framework. uh and it's really how we organize downtown and how we think through um how to place a re redevelopment vision. So just to orient folks to uh the graphic on the screen um the you have King Street um kind of moving north south and West Spring Street through your Market Village. On the upper left you see the community center and the library and then on the lower right you see the historic chapel. Um you know one of the key things here is the the key corridors that anchor and organize the downtown. really it's the investment on King Street and West Spring Street. These are your two main corridors and one of your key assets. You also have some of your great civic anchors um that organize some of your spaces and bring folks to the community. You've got your library, city hall, um you've got the historic chapel, and then of course the the businesses in the market village. You also have amazing green spaces that you've recently invested on that already serve a great purpose in bringing people downtown. your investments in the village green. Um you know your uh the great kind of tranquility of Memorial Cemetery uh some of the the green spaces that are scattered throughout downtown. All this comes together and is connected through what we're calling the Jono Mile which is the line that you see in in orange moving through downtown.

We see the investment in the Jono Mayo something that goes uh through King Street through the heart of the redevelopment, goes up Memorial Place uh right by Memorial Cemetery and then goes through West Spring Street to the Market Village connecting the site to uh the Market Village and then goes up on uh King Street toward the Village Green and connects the pond and the arburetum back to the site. This is a connective tissue that will bring all of downtown together. So, the vision for the site is is a is a kind of a nexus of all of these ideas come together. It's a it's a mixeduse spine on King Street. Um, it's the idea of bringing the Jono Mile through downtown, anchoring redevelopment around the chapel uh through a new chapel green that's connected to the historic chapel. All in all, the massing that you see here is conceptual. This is your a starting point for you all to engage with the development community. And what we're showing here represents a site redevelopment that will add about 350 new homes to downtown, about 8 to 12 businesses, a food hall with about 4 to six restaurants, and a hotel at the corner of church in Atlanta, near the corner of a church in Atlanta that has about 120 rooms. So, I know this is quite a a big graphic to start with. So, I'm going to break it down into some smaller areas and talk a little bit about what they mean. However, I know that one of the key things that you all want to know and the community told us about is housing. So, one of the things that you know when we talk about 350 new homes, I want to be very clear that this is a mix of forale residential and opportunities for for rent as well.

So, we are showing massing that includes some town homes, some flats as well as some um multifamily apartments. And the reason for this is the development strength that you all have here in the region uh to attract some of these uses. You have really great uh comparable rents in the area that are supporting one-bedroom units for 1,800 uh two-bedroom units for 2100. You got really healthy housing ecosystem supporting um you know single family homes or town homes between 4 415 to 500,000. Uh so really um you know great comps that will signal to the development community there's a lot of opportunity. 350 homes might sound like quite a big number and the grand scheme of things as you look at pre other developments in Smyrna, it's actually quite um similar to other concepts of course at a at a density more suitable for downtown. The sink apartments at Jon that's to about 290 multifamily units and the Belmont development is about 274 multifamily units and then 215 single family homes. So this is not an unprecedented amount of residential to add to downtown to Smyrna, but it is an significant investment in the downtown that will bring a lot of new activity. Like I said, all of this is centered around the historic chapel. The chapel in, you know, our own assessment in talking to the community, this is the heart of any future redevelopment. The way we envision redevelopment happening is really opening up the area around the chapel and then focusing redevelopment around a new uh chapel green uh that really highlights this historic structure, opens it up with a glassy or contemporary addition uh and really becomes more of a front lawn for the redevelopment. Brings them about an acre of green space. And then you can have things like mixeduse buildings with parking behind them. uh perhaps an event space um connected to a hotel.

All of these things kind of centered around this new investment in green space. What that could look like um you know this can take a variety of different forms. Today if we're going down Church Street, you've got the frontage of the the 1962 portion of the building. You've got the monument sign. This is looking toward Atlanta Road. So, we've got a sidewalk um and really uh some good tree canopy, but a little bit of an uninspiring uh procession through downtown. As we think through how this can be re-imagined, you know, our vision for this area is really opening up this portion of downtown, making uh making it a down a southernmost gateway for your downtown. Uh honoring that historic architecture with a contemporary addition that really brings light and energy into the site. Perhaps things adding like things like a coffee shop or a visitor center or some sort of uh uh business that brings a little bit of life and activity to that green and then having redevelopment allow um to front that green to bring eyes on that on that space and have the Jono mile kind of connect right through that green space as well. The other main element of the concept is King Street. So like I said, King Street is one of your key corridors for downtown. It is that north south corridor that really connects all of your Keith um assets, all of your, you know, your city hall, the library, the village green. It brings that all together. So, we see King Street as this really fantastic opportunity to make it a walkable, vibrant corridor, uh, and really, you know, support the businesses that are already on King Street and then bring that energy south toward the the the um the redevelopment site.