Politics & Government

Can Cherokee Support 2 Malls?

Return to Patch for live updates from the first Board of Commissioners meeting of 2012.

The  this afternoon is expected to review a proposal for a second outlet mall within 10 miles of another proposed shopping center.

Construction on  is slated to begin in the first half of the year, according to a Dec. 13 news release from Horizon Group Properties, the Michigan company that plans to develop the 365,000-square-foot mall at Ridgewalk Parkway and Interstate 575.

But commissioners will talk about another shopping center at Highway 92 and Interstate 75 at today's 3 p.m. work session. Discussions actually started at the .

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Commissioner Karen Bosch, who lives along the Sixes Road corridor, told the Cherokee Ledger-News that she and Cherokee County Manager Jerry Cooper first sat down a few months ago with Taubman Centers, a national shopping mall developer.

While she told the Ledger-News that she believed the Taubman "outlet mall would do well" at Highway 92 and I-75, she added that she didn't know if both proposals would survive.

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Can Cherokee County support two outlet malls? Let us know in the comment box below.

“What we have here is dueling proposals,” Post 1 Commissioner Harry Johnston told the Ledger-News. “The Horizon project is at the 90 percent stage and this is only at the 10 percent stage. But then again, Taubman is not asking for any monetary help from the city or county.”

At the Dec. 20 commission meeting, Woodstock officials asked the county for $700,000 to assist them with improvements to Ridgewalk Parkway. They suggested using a portion of the $3 million in SPLOST funds earmarked for the Arnold Mill bypass. The money will likely not go to the bypass.

The  on Dec. 13 unanimously approved a request from Horizon to move forward with The Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta. Similar centers across the country include brands such as Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren, Gap Outlet, Nike and Tommy Hilfiger.

Open the PDFs on this page for the commission agendas.


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