One of

America's most recognizable symbols is moving up the

street a little ways in Peachtree City.

The

Planning Commission is scheduled to rule Monday night on

a landscape plan for the new McDonald's restaurant on

Crosstown Drive near Ga. Highway 74, and city planner

David Rast says that is the final city hurdle the company

must clear before opening.

The

restaurant is near completion, and it could be open for

business in a few weeks, replacing the existing eatery

farther east on Crosstown Drive, near the Braelinn

Village shopping center.

The burger

giant takes great pains to remove any signs of its

likeness when exiting a building, so the old restaurant

"will be officially `de-arched,'" Rast said.

The new

venue, next to Best Western, is expected to bring better

exposure to the restaurant, and a newer building also

will include an indoor play area that seems to have

become a staple at the most modern McDonald's

establishments.

It is not

known at this time who or what will occupy the old

restaurant space.

Another

establishment becoming more recognizable in the area is

moving one of its locations a few hundred yards, this

time across Ga. Highway 54.

RAM

Development has purchased the property that once housed a

Morrison's restaurant next to Ruby Tuesday near the

Peachtree Parkway intersection. The company plans to tear

down the existing building and build a stand-alone

structure with drive-through prescription lanes for

motorists, something the current Eckerd across the street

in the Peachtree Crossing shopping center does not have.

Harris

Teeter, the grocery chain that is developing the old

A&P site next to the current Eckerd, has already made

it clear that it does not intend to make its store any

larger than already planned. That brings up the question

of who or what will occupy the old Eckerd space.

City

development director Jim Williams told the Planning

Commission at its Aug. 9 meeting that the city does not

want a site such as that to remain vacant for an extended

period of time. Rast said that the city will try to get

assurances from Eckerd that the pharmacy chain will not

hold onto its Peachtree Crossing lease for very long just

to keep a competitor from moving in there.

conceptual site plan for the new Eckerd store is being

reviewed by city staff now, and it is tentatively on the

Planning Commission's Sept. 13 agenda.

The city is

working with the developer in an attempt to have the new

building blend in with the surrounding establishments as

much as possible.

Another

item on the agenda for Monday's meeting is the landscape

plan for the new McIntosh practice fields, for which Rast

said grading, sodding and irrigation installation have

been completed.

The city

has completed work on the cart path, but there is concern

about some of the perimeter work, such as steep slopes

that need to be stabilized.

Neighbors

in the surrounding residential areas have been watching

the development closely since the beginning, Rast said,

and the city has met with them as well to make certain

that all relevant issues are being taken care of.

The school

system needs to move forward with some of these final

plans, Rast said, but it appears as though very little

has been done in the past three weeks or so.

The city

instructed the school system to place a guard rail along

Walt Banks Road next to an embankment that leads downhill

to the field. All that has been put there is an orange

safety fence, leaving the potential for serious problems

if a motorist ran off the road there.

The school

has not begun using the field yet, choosing to wait and

give the sod plenty of time to take root. But the

embankment issue will be addressed before the field is in

use, Rast said.

Other

landscape plans on the upcoming Planning Commission

agenda include the Peachtree City Distribution Center, a

spec building at the corner of Hwy. 74 and Dividend Drive

in the industrial park; the NAPA auto parts store on

Petrol Point; and the Photocircuits parking expansion at

320 Dividend Drive.

Also on the

agenda is a public hearing for a proposed change in

zoning category from Limited Industrial to Limited Use

Commercial for a tract on Clover Reach, as well as a

buffer replanting plan for the Tiernan and Patrylo

complex on Dividend Drive.

<!--

-----------