By Michael Pearson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/02/08

Park Place may be a good spot for a hotel in Monopoly, but to residents of Gwinnett County’s Park Place community it’s no such thing.

A developer wants to build a three-story Ramada-brand hotel and separate retail center topped by condos at the corner of Rockbridge Road and West Park Place Boulevard, just south of U.S. 78.

Traffic concerns top the list of complaints, but residents also worry the project would ruin views of nearby Stone Mountain, decrease property values and add more commercial inventory to an area that already suffers from significant vacancies in existing strip centers.

“We’re holding on with the hope that Gwinnett County would do what it said it was going to do and revitalize,” Rebecca Heitkam said. “This is the exact opposite of that.”

Heitkam and other residents who attended a community meeting on the proposal Wednesday night said the project is simply more of the same commercial development that already exists in the area. In many cases, those storefronts are empty.

Moreover, the project is located in an area that will adversely impact residents of the Rockbridge Acres subdivision, which backs up to the site, and other nearby neighborhoods, they said.

But Greg Sportsman of Hobgood Construction Group, which is managing the project, said there’s nothing in the area like the mixed-use proposal, which he said is modeled on Suwanee Town Center.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to make this something that will blend in with the community instead of standing in stark contrast,” he said.

Sportsman said the project design calls for a six-foot berm and 15-foot-tall trees to screen views of the buildings from Rockbridge Acres properties behind it.

The hotel would include 80 rooms, a full-service restaurant and meeting space that could accommodate weddings and other events, Sportsman said.

The two-story retail building would include condos priced at about $200,000 on the top level, he said.

He also said the project team is willing to accept conditions to forbid businesses objectionable to residents, as well as even more significant changes to the plan if that’s what residents want.

“If we put up something you guys don’t like, it’s not going to be successful,” he told residents.

Frances Smith, president of the Park Place Community Association, said she worries what might happen if residents run the developer off. The land is zoned for office and institutional use and residents would have little input if the site were targeted for such a project.

But there’s no question the project is a bad fit for the specific piece of land it’s being proposed for, she said.

“We need that kind of development, maybe even bigger, in one of the blighted areas. We need that closer to the mountain, not backing up to a residential neighborhood that obviously wants nothing to do with it,” she said.

The project is scheduled to be heard by the Planning Commission on May 13, but it is not uncommon for proposals facing significant community opposition to be delayed while developers and residents try to work out an agreement.