Major Pill Hill mixed-use project would replace entire residential street

A developer plans to buy out an entire street of homes bordering Pill Hill to build a major mixed-use project fronting on the Glenridge Connector.

All owners along western Clementstone Drive—a cul-de-sac of eight single-family homes off Peachtree-Dunwoody Road in Sandy Springs—have agreed to sell to developer Richmond Honan, said Joe Cannon, a real estate broker with KW Commercial Atlanta Perimeter.

“Yes, the entire street,” said Cannon of the Clementstone plan, which covers roughly 13 acres and would build a new road onto the Connector at the existing Meridian Mark Drive intersection. “We’ve been working with [the homeowners] for months…It’s going to be a mixed-use deal.”

Plans are in the very early stage, Cannon said. But the general idea involves retail space fronting on the Connector, along with senior housing—independent and assisted living—and possibly some doctors’ offices to serve it. The southern, rear section would have “some extremely high-end luxury homes.”

The plans are so preliminary that Cannon could not give specific unit counts or heights or even say whether the homes would be single-family or townhomes. More details will be available by next month, when the developer will present the plan to the High Point Civic Association, a Sandy Springs community organization, according to the broker and HPCA member Bill Gannon.

“I think like everyone feels it needs to be redeveloped,” Cannon, the broker, said of Clementstone, “but there’s going to be a huge variety of opinions as to how it should be redeveloped and the density of the redevelopment.”

A Richmond Honan representative could not offer immediate comment, but did confirm the company’s involvement in a Clementstone Drive plan. Alpharetta-based Richmond Honan is a nationally known developer of medical offices and hospitals. It has built on Pill Hill before, including a Northside Hospital tower and the Meridian Mark Plaza medical building across the Connector from the proposed Clementstone project.

Northside Hospital owns one of those Clementstone Drive houses, which it bought in 2014, according to property records. Cannon said that the hospital might occupy some of the medical office space in the proposed redevelopment, but is not a partner in the project. The project is “not going to be in their name…or specially for them,” he said.

Northside spokesperson Katherine Watson did not have immediate comment about the Richmond Honan plan. Northside owns a large vacant property at Meridian Mark Drive and the Connector, opposite the Meridian Mark Plaza. Watson recently said that the hospital has no plans for that property at this time.

Cannon said the Clementstone project should have no impact on local school capacity. He said it would aid traffic by making the main access via the new road proposed on the Connector, while either entirely shutting Clementstone or turning it into a limited-use driveway.

The luxury housing component, he said, is intended as a “nice transition” from the residential West Kingston Drive area to the south and the proposed, denser use along the Connector.

The Clementstone plan comes as part of a major Pill Hill construction boom. A new Ronald McDonald House recently opened on Peachtree-Dunwoody between the Connector and Clementstone. The HPCA’s Gannon noted that with that project done, “now it is time for the next domino to fall” along Clementstone.

Meanwhile, another huge mixed-use redevelopment is planned nearby for the Peachtree Dunwoody Pavilion office park. A developer recently came close to buying out some Johnson Ferry Road townhomes, a resident previously said. And Northside and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite both have significant expansion plans in the works.