Published Friday, July 03, 2009

Sam's Club deal near at Fischer Crossings?

The Times-Herald

The Fischer Crossings development is seeing forward movement again after a long hiatus, and the developers may be close to closing a deal for a Sam's Club.

The proposed development -- west of the Line Creek bridge and Peachtree City at the intersection of Highway 34 and Fischer Road -- has been in the works for years. The 150-acre tract has been cleared since 2006 and was originally supposed to be home to a 12-screen movie theater, CVS and Walgreens pharmacies and a Japanese steak house.

But then the recession hit, and a portion of the proposed development went into foreclosure last fall. Another $1.68 million, 29-acre portion of the proposed development was listed in this month's foreclosures in The Times-Herald legal ads.

But that shouldn't affect the Sam's Club deal, Peachtree City developer Scott Seymour said Thursday afternoon.

"That's happening under a different LLC, so it will not affect what we're doing with Sam's Club," said Seymour. "We're talking about two separate legal entities."

The Sam's Club will be on the northwest portion of the development, while the tract currently in foreclosure is the tract on the southwest quadrant of the Highway 34/Fischer intersection, he said.

"Fischer Crossings Development Group LLC owns everything on the north side of Highway 34," he explained, while the entities involved in the foreclosure on the southwest tract are Fischer Crossings Development Group II and Fischer Road II Mezzanine Loan LLC.

"We've entered into an agreement with the Coweta County Water & Sewerage Authority to run sewer to the site," said Seymour of Thursday's agreement with the authority. "So we'll no longer have a decentralized system.

"Really all we're doing is we're trying to get the Sam's Club deal closed," he said, hopefully by the end of July.

"Once we get that done, I think a lot of the tenants we had in the past will get back on board," he said, and the project will again move forward.

He said earlier reports the Sam's Club property had already been sold to Atlanta-based Bright-Meyers Development Corp. were incorrect.

"We own it. We haven't sold that property," he said.

But the sale of the property is now possible, since Seymour's development company is now in bankruptcy. A bankruptcy judge allowed Seymour to back out of an earlier contract with Alliance Entertainment's Great Escapes Theater, which frees up the property.

"We got out of our contract with that group because the judge rejected the contract, but we're still seeking to have a theater out there," said Seymour.

Seymour predicts that construction on the 136,000-square-foot Sam's Club will begin in August.

"We're so fortunate to have Sam's Club, and hopefully the county will continue to work with us," said Seymour.

Fischer Crossings was originally envisioned as a 150-acre complex -- estimated at one time to be roughly half the area of Atlanta's Lenox Square Mall, with about one million square feet of commercial space at build-out.

Rumblings of a massive development slated for the area began in the summer of 2006, and residents in the Wynn's Pond area opposed the initial C-7 Commercial Major Shopping District rezoning application. Seymour said at the time that he planned to have "food stores, clothing stores, and other retail, and maybe a movie theater."

Alliance Theater Company filed a lawsuit against Fischer Crossings in Fayette Superior Court last November after concerns were raised about its $35,000 in earnest money paid on seven acres. The 12-screen theater was to be located on the Wynn's Pond corner of the proposed development.