Retail Growth Comes to Paulding County

"At the last census, we were the seventh fastest growing county in the country, percentage-wise," Mark Bryant, executive director of the Paulding County Community Development Department, tells GlobeSt.com.

In 10 years, the county's population grew from 40,000 to more than 81,000.

Commercial development is also coming to town. Two malls are in the works. Kohl's, an 86,000-sf department store, recently opened as an anchor of Hiram Pavillion on US 278. The complex will eventually include a half million sf of space, Bryant says. A second and smaller mall right across the street is planned for 150,000 sf with a Kmart and an Office Max under construction.

Other new malls along US 278 are rumored or in the works. That should come as no surprise, however. Traffic counts along US 278 doubled in the past 10 years and are expected to double again by 2010.

"We're zoned for several major shopping-retail areas but obviously some of those won't get built," Bryant says.Paulding County is located about 30 miles west of Downtown Atlanta. Its location near Cobb County places it next door to one of the area's "original boom counties for metro Atlanta," says Bryant.

The area is centered around Dallas, GA, which has also seen a major traffic upswing due in large part to increased single family home building. Traffic along Dallas Highway jumped 113% from 1990 to 1999.

Hotels and offices have yet to be affected by the area's growth. There are only a few smaller hotels but Bryant does not expect that to change in the near future.

"We only have a few office parks and not a tremendous amount of industry," he says. That's not likely to change nor is a major industry expected to move into the county, in part, because of sewer limitations.

The county also has only a limited amount of office space. There's probably no real class A offices in the area, Bryant says, but offices of some type could be the next focus of commercial development here.