Interstate 575 Project Spurs Development Plans

The project is expected to generate an estimated $2 billion in new county-wide commercial development after it is built, probably in 2010, Cherokee County government sources tell GlobeSt.com. The interchange is planned at Woodstock Parkway, a mile north of Towne Lake Parkway. The site is about 20 miles north of Downtown Atlanta.

Among the new developments will be an estimated $50-million, 500,000-sf Avenue-brand, open-air shopping center developed by Atlanta-based Cousins Properties Inc. near the interchange, area brokers knowledgeable in Cherokee County developments tell GlobeSt.com. The center would be the ninth and second largest Avenue-brand venture Cousins has attempted to date in four states. It would be the largest Avenue project in metro Atlanta.

Sources in a position to know tell GlobeSt.com Cousins has contracted to buy a 43-acre tract from Cherokee County developer Bill Butler that would house the new Avenue enterprise. About 40 retailers would comprise the center which is at least five years away from groundbreaking, area marketers tell GlobeSt.com.

Also benefiting from the new interchange would be Butler's own 400-acre residential and commercial development called Ridgewalk near Woodstock Parkway, formerly Rope Mill Road. The developer has about 175 acres left to develop in the project, area industrial brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Offices and retail stores are expected to dominate the 175-acre parcel. Butler and Cousins' representatives couldn't be reached by GlobeSt.com's publication deadline.

Cousins' completed Avenue projects to date include four properties in metro Atlanta and three in California, Tennessee and Alabama, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. Completed in metro Atlanta are the 356,000-sf, estimated $34-million Avenue Web Gin Corners; the Avenue East Cobb, 226,000 sf, estimated $18 million; the Avenue Peachtree, 182,000 sf, estimated $14.6 million; and the Avenue West Cobb, 205,000 sf, estimated $16.4 million.

Outside of Georgia, Cousins has the Avenue Viera in Viera, FL, 415,000 sf, estimated $50 million; the Avenue of the Peninsula in Rolling Hills Estates, Los Angeles, 374,000 sf, estimated $30 million; and the Avenue Carriage Crossing in the Memphis suburb of Collierville, TN, 800,000 sf, estimated $63 million. Cousins is co-developing Avenue Carriage Crossing with Jim Wilson & Associates of Montgomery, AL.

Cousins' eighth planned Avenue lifestyle center will be on a 12-acre tract in suburban Alpharetta, 30 miles north of Downtown Atlanta, as GlobeSt.com reported Jan. 22. The unnamed 170,000-sf, estimated $15-million project would include 145,000 sf of retail and 25,000 sf of office in two stories above the main retail structure. A parking deck would also be part of the project.