SMYRNA GATEWAY | SMYRNA, GA A VISION FOR THE SPRING ROAD CORRIDOR GEORGIA TECH CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING | DECEMBER, 2016 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CITY OF SMYRNA • Tom Boland – Economic Development Manager • Rusty Martin – Senior Planner Community Development • William Smith – Economic Devt. Coordinator • Joey Staubes – Planner II Community Development SMYRNA GATEWAY | • Ken Suddreth – Community Development Director SMYRNA, GA GEORGIA TECH SCHOOL OF CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING STUDENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Mike Dobbins - Professor of Practice • Spandana Anand [email protected] The City of Smyrna is a thriving community in Cobb intended to transform the Spring Road corridor into a County characterized by its Market Village, tight-knit thriving live, work, and play destination for Cobb County • Matt Bedsole [email protected] neighborhoods, diverse population, and close proximity and the Atlanta region. This document consists of four • Jack Cebe [email protected] to the City of Atlanta. In November 2013, the Atlanta chapters that present findings on study background • David DeLeon [email protected] Braves announced plans to relocate outside of the City and existing conditions, and correlatin city wide • Jordan Howard [email protected] of Atlanta, constructing a new stadium (Sun Trust recommendations as well as core area recommendations Park) and mixed use development (The Battery) at the summarized below: • Zahra Jeena [email protected] • Jing Kong [email protected] I-75/I-285 interchange in Cobb County. This sudden • Citywide recommendations (Chapter 3) proposes relocation of a Major League Baseball team ushered in a number of improvements, such as connecting • Mia McKinney [email protected] the potential for substantial development opportunities bicycle and pedestrian facilities, creating local • Anna Nord [email protected] in the Cumberland Area, a traditionally suburban circulator and regional Bus Rapid Transit Routes, • Elliot Sperling [email protected] job center. Smyrna officials – anticipating extensive adding parks, and tightening design and land- • Sean (Shahaboddin) Toroghi [email protected] population and job growth in the main arterial of Spring use regulations that will benefit the Spring Road Road that provides east-west connection from Smyrna corridor and City as a whole. Market Village towards the new stadium — sought the SIZEMORE GROUP assistance of Georgia Tech Masters of City and Regional • Core area recommendations (Chapter 4) proposes • Bill de St. Aubin - Principal Planning students, Noell Consulting, and Sizemore transforming the area surrounding the intersection • Chirag Date – Planner/Architect of Cobb Parkway and Spring Road into a mixed- Group, to develop a visioning plan for the future of the • Simone Heath - Planner I corridor. use urban center filled with jobs, multi-family residences, inspiring parks, and vibrant streets. • Deanna Murphy– Principal Through an intensive four-month studio process, The study divides this area into four distinct the Georgia Tech team, with feedback from many districts and proposes new roadway connections NOELL CONSULTING stakeholders, developed a number of recommendations • Ben King - Senior Real Estate Consultant TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .......................................... 4 BUS RAPID TRANSIT ...................... 35 IMPLEMENTATION ......................... 66 SHARED MOBILITY ........................ 38 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......... 10 LAND-USE/COMMUNITY DESIGN .. 40 APPENDIX A: MARKET ANALYSIS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ......... 12 (NOELL CONSULTING GROUP) ........... PROJECT PROCESS/OUTLINE ......... 12 CHAPTER 4: CORE AREA RECOMMENDATIONS ..................... 42 APPENDIX B: FISCAL IMPACT ANALYSIS .......................................... CHAPTER 2: EXISTING CONDITIONS 16 STREET NETWORK ........................ 44 DEMOGRAPHICS .......................... 12 STREET TYPE 1 .............................. 46 STREET TYPE 2 .............................. 48 APPENDIX C: WHITE FLINT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT .......... 22 PLANNING BOARD DRAFT PLAN ........ CONDITIONS OF THE BUILT STREET TYPE 3 .............................. 50 ENVIRONMENT ............................ 24 HIGH PRIORITY PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS ................................... 52 CHAPTER 3: CITYWIDE URBAN CORE CHARACTER AREAS . 56 RECOMMENDATIONS ..................... 28 THE BRIDGE DISTRICT .................. 58 BICYCLE/PEDESTRIAN NETWORK . 30 THE GATEWAY DISTRICT ............... 60 PARK SYSTEM ............................... 32 EAST SPRING ST. NEIGHBORHOOD . 62 LOCAL CIRCULATOR ..................... 33 JONQUIL PARK .............................. 64 4 PREFACE INSTRUCTOR’S PREFACE The Smyrna Gateway studio spanned Group, and a Fiscal Impact Analysis, The People: to support anticipated and generally the fall semester of 2016 and included performed by Alfie Meek of Georgia desired growth • Steadily growing population over the 11 Master’s Degree students with diverse Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, to last 25 years from 32,000 to about • A growing consensus with the areas of interest, three of whom are provide the framework for understanding 55,000 Cumberland CID, the Braves, and pursuing dual degrees in planning and what obligations and benefits the city might Smyrna (if not Cobb County) that this • Slowly diversifying ethnicities transportation engineering. The City of expect over the coming years. In addition, deficiency is an obstacle to attracting Smyrna asked us to explore development the studio’s work dovetailed with Smyrna’s • A seeming clustering of demographic and sustaining the changing markets impacts and opportunities along the east Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) study, profiles that reflects the city’s growth experienced in the region portions of the Spring Road corridor and conducted by the Sizemore Group, whose in different types of subdivisions from its intersection with Cobb Parkway. The technical expertise and citizen engagement ‘80s to the present city’s driving purpose was to explore and processes picked up to further guide the Identity: assess the implications for Smyrna of the students’ work. Connectivity: • Over the last 25 years, after getting one billion dollar investment in the new To address those central issues the national press as the “Redneck Capitol SunTrust Stadium and associated The students first undertook a context-framing • Generally well located and connected of the South,” city leaders have Battery development across the street. The study to inform themselves on the larger to the larger region, Sandy Springs, consistently prioritized building the goal became to suggest measures that could demographic, transportation, housing, the Perimeter, the City of Atlanta kinds of public infrastructure that has maximize opportunities for transforming economic development, urban design, and and the airport by roads and railroads led the region in priming emerging low density, strip style development over parks and environment factors and trends (freight), thus to jobs, services, and markets for high quality public places, time into the emergence of a major new bearing on the core area. Some of the key amenities beginning with Village Green, then urban center. The studio work incorporated outcomes of this effort included: • Transit connectivity, served by Cobb Market Square, and major corridor a detailed Market Analysis of its emerging Community Transit with a MARTA streetscape and greenway trails vision and its long term implications, link at Cumberland Mall, however, improvements performed by the Noell Consulting is not as effective as it will need to be • Smyrna’s 70 percent population SMYRNA GATEWAY - A VISION FOR SPRING ROAD PREFACE 5 growth since then partly reflects this Transportation: Development Demographics: Accordingly, students took the findings commitment to quality summarized above to help them frame their • The city has generally good north- • The market analysis highlighted action analyses and proposals. In addition, • Taking this growing commitment as south connectivity but is challenged in a strong and growing demand for students and I participated in planning their cue, students sought to translate its east-west corridors, especially in the all residential types and densities, activities linked with the city’s Livable this spirit and achievement as guides studio’s Spring Road core area accelerating from modest west of Centers Initiative (LCI) study, including the for reimagining the strip identity that Jonquil Park to intense approaching • As mentioned above, significant initial visual preference and related surveys characterize the study’s core area Cobb Parkway and I-285 improvements in transit access, both launched at the Jonquil Festival and the local and regional, will need to be • Noting that the residential population follow up community engagement processes. Economic Development: staged to accommodate the kinds of in the core area is not large, yet does Citizen feedback was vital for the students • Students found that the diversity in incremental redevelopment envisaged provide housing at costs manageable to understand the culture, the problems, the the economy and job types is strong by the Smyrna Gateway project for modest wage workers, students hopes, the aspirations, and the priorities of and well enough balanced to sustain • Congestion is exacerbated by the sought to explore housing strategies a cross-section of Smyrna’s citizenry. With continued population growth and limited options for exiting off of Cobb