Dunwoody Planning Commission defers decision on big mixed-use project near Perimeter Mall

The Dunwoody Planning Commission deferred a decision on new multi-use development that includes a nursing home. 

City staff and the applicant, Grubb Properties, requested a deferral on a request to amend the conditions of zoning for a 19.4-acre development in the Perimeter Mall area at an Aug. 9 meeting. Grubb Properties announced plans to submit a rezoning application for properties at 41, 47, and 53 Perimeter Center East in June. 

The Dunwoody City Council previously approved a rezoning for those properties in 2018 for a different mixed-use development. That development included 900 condominiums, commercial space, and a pocket park. 

According to city documents, the new development would keep the three office buildings on the site intact, and also include two new apartment buildings with 610 units, 250 of which would be age restricted; a 150-bed nursing home facility; 13,180 square feet of retail and restaurant space; two acres of green space; and 1,227 parking spaces, including surface parking and a six-story parking deck. 

Staff requested that the commission defer a decision on the application so that the applicant could provide a landscape plan for the park. Staff is also requesting a slight change to the site plan that would mean a small shift in the location of the nursing home and some surface parking. 

The inclusion of multi-unit rental apartments and the nursing home facility requires Special Land-Use Permits for the applicant. The properties are currently zoned for PC-2 in the Perimeter Center. 

“The intent of the Perimeter Center is to be a visitor friendly and livable, regional center with office, retail, restaurants, and residential uses in a pedestrian and bicycle oriented environment,” said Senior Planner Madalyn Smith. “The amendments to the conditions of zoning that are changed to allow these uses to not detract from the overall development’s support of the vision for the perimeter center.”

Grubb is also requesting relief from street frontage requirements in multiple places in its site plan, including various sidewalk and buffer reductions. Smith said staff is fine with all of these requests except for a request to reduce the buffer width along Perimeter Center East. Staff believes this reduction would prevent the planting of street trees.

David Kirk, an attorney with the firm Troutman Pepper, spoke about some of the decisions behind changing the site plan, specifically switching from condos to apartments. Before the council approved the 2018 rezoning, the original plan for the site included 1,200 apartments and condos. Opposition from the Dunwoody Homeowners Association against new apartments caused the council to make Grubb include for-sale condos. 

Kirk pointed to the housing market as one of the reasons. 

“We have tried for a number of years … to get financing for owner-occupied residential,” he said. “There’s no market there for it, there’s no taste for it in the financial market.”