Sugar Hill will soon have even more housing options after a new mixed-use residential development was approved at the September meeting of the Sugar Hill City Council on Monday night, Sept. 13, 2021.
The property consists of 10.579 acres located where the old Bailey Cabinet Shop was at the corner of Nelson Brogdon Boulevard (Ga. Highway 20) and Bailey Avenue. The applicant, Dennis Jordan, asked for a rezoning of the parcel from the light manufacturing district to both the general business district and the central business district.
The new zonings will allow Jordan to construct 126 townhomes on the property, which averages out to 11.91 units per acre. The townhomes will be available for rent for $2,200 per unit and will have exteriors made of brick and/or stone. Each unit is required to have three natural gas appliances and the city will be the natural gas supplier for the development.
In addition to the townhomes, the development will feature retail/commercial space, a clubhouse facility and will have 2.5 acres of green space. Residents can enjoy the pocket park and community lawn that will be part of the green space.
The site plan has two entrances to the development coming off of Bailey Avenue instead located directly on Nelson Brogdon Boulevard. The findings of the Sugar Hill planning department did not indicate any substantial impact on Nelson Brogdon Boulevard, stating, “Highway 20 is a principal arterial road and currently operates at an acceptable level of service in the vicinity of Bailey Ave.”
The developer is required to improve Bailey Avenue to meet current city standards before the development reaches 50 percent occupancy. The developer is also required to provide a minimum of 40 on-street parking spaces. A stream winds through the southern end of the property and the developer is giving the city a minimum of a 20-foot easement to allow for a multi-use trail near the stream.
The city has asked that any restaurant interested in leasing part of the retail/commercial space not be a chain. There is to be a minimum of 4,500 square feet of “destination retail or restaurant” space.
With the current housing shortage, the outlook for renting the units out in a timely manner is good. Other rental based developments in the city limits are seeing high leasing rates. The Local (formerly Broadstone at Sugar Hill) is now 100 percent leased. All available units the Cadence has are already pre-leased. It will be January before the property has any additional units available. The newest development, The Holbrook, has already opened a leasing office and has begun pre-leasing its units.
