Zoning board makes decision on retail center with ‘high end’ grocery on Thomaston Road
A proposed shopping center with a major “high end” grocery store on Thomaston Road in west Bibb County was approved Monday by the zoning commission.
No one spoke in opposition to the retail center during the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission meeting, said Executive Director Jim Thomas.
“In fact, there were two people in support of it,” Thomas said.
When the center was first presented to the commission Aug. 13, a company representative said that while he couldn’t disclose the name of the grocery chain, he said the “very poplar, high-end grocer,” was the “largest employee-owned business in the United States.” Publix fits that description, according to Forbes magazine and the National Center for Employee Ownership.
Applications for the shopping center with a 48,387-square-foot grocery store were deferred in late August for the second time to give commission’s staff and the applicant, JWA Ventures LLC, an opportunity to meet with the Georgia Department of Transportation to discuss access to the center from Thomaston Road. Commissioners had some questions about truck access.
The 14-acre site is composed of nine contiguous parcels on Thomaston and Tucker roads and includes 5591, 5581, 5571 and 5561 Thomaston Road. A conditional-use permit was sought for eight of the parcels that are already zoned for commercial use. A rezoning application was filed for one parcel, at 2154 Tucker Road, to change the zoning from a single-family residential district to a commercial district.
After the applicant showed a revised plan with two access points off Thomaston Road and two off Tucker Road, the commission approved both applications, Thomas said. The applicant also agreed to make a few changes to the landscaping and the building’s design which it will work out with the staff.
The applicant is a division of Jim Wilson & Associates based in Montgomery, Alabama, which developed The Shoppes at River Crossing off Riverside Drive in north Bibb County.
Other items on the agenda were:
6855 Thomaston Road: Proposal to rezone from A-Agricultural District to PDC, Planned Development Commercial District. The purpose of this rezoning is to allow for retail development (Dollar General). Cleve Cunningham, Cunningham & Co., Engineering, applicant. Deferred by applicant.
2530 Riverside Drive: Conditional Use to allow a used vehicle sales lot with a temporary office trailer, C-4 District. Danny Tavakol, applicant. Applicant did not appear; no action taken.
6295 Skipper Road: Conditional Use to allow freightliner truck sales and repair, PDE District. Carter Engineering Group, Don Carter, applicant. Approved.