Planning Commission Recommends Rezone For Retirement Community

The Oconee County Planning Commission has recommended that the Board of Commissioners approve the rezone request for just under 62 acres between Old Epps Bridge Road and SR Loop 10 for a large retirement community with 398 residential units.

The project, called Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus, will include in Phase 1 two three-story “concierge living” buildings, a three-story assisted living and memory care building, two four-story independent living buildings, and 32 independent living cottages.

Phase 2 will include 86 independent living units that will be sold to interested residents who are 55 years old or older.

The Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus retirement community will be just smaller in land mass than the 70-acre Presbyterian Village Athens under construction on U.S. 441 at Hog Mountain Road northeast of Watkinsville.

The 398 residential units planned for Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus compares with 210 residential units at Presbyterian Village Athens. Not included in that count is a three-story health-services building with memory care units and other facilities.

Armand Vari of Active Senior Concepts of Suwanee, the developer of Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus, said Oconee County “is really underbuilt today” in terms of retirement communities and will be “short in the next 10 years” even when his and other similar projects are completed.

Ken Beall of Beall and Company, representing property owner Ross Developments, described Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus was an “upscale assisted living community” and termed it the “Ritz-Carlton of retirement communities.”

For more on this story, with a video of the Planning Commission meeting, please go to Oconee County Observations.