New plan for Fischer Crossing emerging

There is a bit of preliminary movement at the proposed Fischer Crossing retail development on the northeast corner of Fischer Road and Ga. Highway 34 in east Coweta County. A rezoning request for an access road and other items were heard at the June 18 meeting of the Coweta County Commission.

As originally rezoned from RC (Rural Conservation) to C-7 (Major Commercial Shopping Center) a few years ago, the 77-acre northeast quadrant of the Fischer Road/Hwy. 34 intersection was to be home to a Kohl’s department store that would serve as the anchor and would include a number of other retailers. But that was during the Great Recession and resulted in the eventual loss of the property by developer Scott Seymour after Kohl’s pulled out of the project.

Today there is a potential new buyer, Fischer Partners, LLC, represented by Steven Gaultney of Lawrenceville-based Gaultney Development. Fischer Partners at the June 18 commission meeting requested that a 1.39-acre strip on the north side of the previously C-7-zoned property be rezoned to that designation to accommodate an access road for a planned commercial center and that a number of conditions to the C-7 zoning be amended.

Coweta County Zoning Administrator Angela White said the request to amend some of the conditions of the C-7 zoning included issues such as clarifying the property’s ownership, buffer reductions and a conservation easement.

Commissioners voted to approve the two requests except for the few conditions that referenced Wynn’s Pond Road. Those conditions will be taken up at the July 9 meeting. Among the issues dealing with Wynn’s Pond Road is a median cut along Ga. Highway 54 at the road’s highway entrance and another on the west side of the road which plans call for having a gated cul-de-sac area with a keypad on either side of the gate to restrict access to the Featherston Fishing Club properties.

Another aspect of the potential development deals with what was to be an 18-acre site on the extreme north side of the development slated during the previous zoning to become ball fields. Gaultney said that idea is no longer a part of the overall project, adding his preference that the property maintain its current RC zoning.

As for the future of the Fischer Crossing commercial development, Gaultney said he hopes to bring the project to fruition, though that potential has yet to be determined.