Politics & Government

City Council to Study 'City Center' Concept

Council members to meet with consulting firm.

The Johns Creek City Council is in the early stages of exploring a "city center" concept.

While no details regarding cost or location have been publicly discussed, the city has paid $51,000 to architecture and planning firm Sizemore Group to begin facilitating and studying the idea.

Representatives of the Atlanta-based Sizemore Group, which master-planned the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, introduced themselves during the City Council's Monday work session.

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"[We help communities] figure out where they'd like to go," said the firm's Lilly Barrios.

Mike Sizemore explained that the first steps in the process would include one-on-one meetings with council members to present questions to get them thinking, such asΒ "Is there a place in Johns Creek [you take visitors] and say 'this is our community'?"

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Said Mayor Mike Bodker, "We are looking forward to the process. We have been talking about [a city center] a long time."

The City of Johns Creek, formed six years ago, currently has no downtown area, town square or central gathering place, which a city center would presumably provide.

While possible funding of a city center hasn't been broached with the public yet, proposed changes to the city's charter would make it possible for the city attain a good bond rating for special projects.

In Alpharetta, for example, voters approved a , which includes a new city hall, a parking deck, a town green and infrastructure improvements to an entire 22-acre site.

See also:Β 


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