The Dunwoody Planning Commission will wait until January before making a recommendation on a proposed three-story storage facility on North Shallowford Road in the Georgetown community. The site is near I-285 where a former U.S. Post Office annex building is currently located.
Questions about a shared parking agreement with the city and how a storage facility would fit in with the city’s vision of transforming the Georgetown area into a walkable, bikeable district were raised at the commission’s Dec. 11 meeting. The commission agreed to defer voting on the proposed project until Jan. 8. The City Council has final say on the proposed development.
Adevco Corporation is seeking a special land use permit to build a three-story storage building on nearly four acres at 4444 N. Shallowford Road at the intersection of Peachford Road near Cotillion Road and I-285. The current zoning only allows for two stories.
The city of Dunwoody owns the 4470 N. Shallowford building adjacent to the proposed storage building development. The city’s two-story building will soon serve as an annex to the city’s police department with training rooms and evidence storage space. The police department’s main offices are at City Hall on Ashford-Dunwoody Road. The city’s annex also includes community rooms for the Parks and Recreation Department.
But the new annex building has limited parking and city officials are asking Adevco to make some of its parking available as part of the SLUP approval. Representatives from Adveco said they have no problems sharing their parking but are not willing to grant a permanent easement to the city as requested. The developers are instead proposing a lease arrangement at no cost to the city.
Commission Chair Bob Dallas pointed out during the Dec. 11 meeting there are other storage buildings within a few miles of North Shallowford Road, including one on Dunwoody Park South and another on Savoy Drive.
Adevco representatives said there is high demand for public storage due to many apartment complexes in the area. They said they expected no problem renting out the spaces in their proposed building.
Dallas also asked if the developers were willing to put retail on the first floor of the storage building. Doing so would make the building more fitting with the comprehensive plan for the Georgetown character area to become a transit-oriented, mixed-use district with street level businesses to attract pedestrians and cyclists, he said.
The Adevco officials said they preferred not to do so. They said they could build a two-story building as allowed by right in the current zoning but believed a three-story building would be more aesthetically pleasing.