Residential Development Could be Coming to Belmont Hills Soon

At his State of the City Address Thursday Smyrna Mayor Max Bacon hinted that there might be some new development at the Belmont Hills site located at the intersection of Atlanta and Windy Hill Roads.

“I’m going to tell you probably in the next 30 days there’s going to be an announcement that there’s going to be something going there,” he said.

Bacon didn’t say more about the issue, but Ward 3 Council Representative Teri Anulewicz elaborated for Smyrna-Vinings Patch after the speech.

“(Halpern) has gotten some interest for some residential development,” she said. “So they are going to be bringing something to us I’d say late summer early fall. Unfortunately I don’t have any specifics at this point, but that’s what they said their timeline was going to be to present something. We’ll of course bring it to the full Council again. It’s very exciting.”

The empty Belmont Hills development has been a point of contention for many in Smyrna for several years. In May of 2008, the city approved a development agreement with Halpern Enterprises for a $250 million mixed-use redevelopment of the former Belmont Hills shopping center at the corner of Atlanta and Windy Hill Roads.

Under that agreement, Halpern self-funded the Tax Allocation District (TAD) eligible expenses (infrastructure improvements) and is to be reimbursed by county and city property tax revenue as a result of the project.  

However, Halpern has been unable to raise the upfront funding for the project and the corner has remained empty. The Cobb County School District purchased a section of the property along Fleming and Ward Streets for Smyrna’s new elementary school in 2011 and .