Gwinnett County OKs Wal-Mart Deal, Rejects Residential Application

Controversy surrounds both transactions, area brokers intimate with the projects who attend the county's public meetings tell GlobeSt.com. Eager to find a site for a records storage facility and a new public health clinic, Gwinnett County commissioners have contracted to buy the former 135,000-sf Wal-Mart building in Lawrenceville for $3.7 million or a below-replacement cost price of $27.40 per sf.

Lawrenceville Improvement LLC, a division of DLC Management Co., owns the Wal-Mart building and some of the parking area that is being sold to the county, DLC Management owner Adam Ifshin tells GlobeSt.com. Ifshin also owns Gwinnett Progress Center.

But a spokesman for the state's attorney general's office maintains the commissioners' vote on the Wal-Mart property violates the Georgia Open Meetings Act because it was done behind closed doors and not at an open public session. Commissioners deny they have done anything wrong and argue the law allows closed-door discussions to avoid disclosing their negotiating position with rival bidders for a property. Taxpayers have 90 days to challenge the commission's decision.

In the Publix situation, elected officials denied landowner James Braden's request to build 600 townhomes and single-family residences near Publix's $350-million distribution center within Gwinnett Progress Center. Commissioners argued the homes would have burdened the area's already overcrowded school district.

But Publix officials, according to area retail brokers, are upset over the county's decision because allowing the 600-home in a portion of the business park away from the Publix distribution center was part of an agreement Publix and the county had previously made to settle an ongoing lawsuit filed by the grocer against the county and the landowner. Now Publix and the county will have to renegotiate settlement terms, county staffers tell GlobeSt.com.

The Publix suit is over a 2003 zoning that would allow 80 homes to be built near the Publix distribution center, a move that allegedly would disrupt its operations and development plans for a retail center. Area retail brokers tell GlobeSt.com Publix was planning a shopping center near its distribution hub but may hold off on that project until the zoning issue is cleared up.