The Heery Road site project will take at least two years to complete with a tentative ground-breaking set for later this year, county planning staffers confirm for GlobeSt.com. The county's special purpose local option sales tax is expected to fund the project.

Already a magnet for new multifamily, retail and office development, the local area of about 16,000 permanent residents has been selected by several name developers for new projects, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

For example, California-based Ryland Homes and Patrick Malloy Communities of Carrollton are teaming to develop Stonebridge at Newnan Crossing, a 600-unit townhome and single-family community on 200 acres that is expected to have a build-out value of $100 million, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

CBL & Associates Properties Inc. of Chattanooga, TN is putting up the 1.3-million-sf Village at Newnan Crossing which is expected to open in 2005. Stan Thomas, president of Smyrna-based Thomas Enterprises Inc., plans to open his 480,000-sf Forum at Newnan Crossing shopping center in November where Consolidated Theaters of Charlotte, NC will have a cinema complex, the first in the area.

CED Holdings of Orlando paid $1.8 million, or $104,046 per acre, for a 17.3-acre site on the east side of Interstate 85 near the city in April 2003. At the same time, Riverwood Properties of Atlanta bought a 1.5-acre tract for $1.1 million, or $733,333 per acre, in the same location.

Both developers plan retail projects that will have an estimated hard construction cost of about $60 million, Chris Cooper of Dallas-based Mullen Co., previously told GlobeSt.com. Mullen brokered both land deals.