'Crown Jewel' of Roswell Road: City Springs Reaches Milestone

SANDY SPRINGS, GA -- Friday's blistering cold and windy conditions didn't stop Sandy Springs leaders and community members from celebrating a milestone reached by the City Springs project.

The city on Friday held a "topping out" ceremony on the massive downtown development project designed to infuse dining, high-end residential living and amenity retail and entertainment options into the city's core.

The event, the first official ceremony held in the area that will serve as the future Council chambers, included a barbecue lunch catered by Slope's BBQ, which opened less than a year ago following a fire that heavily damaged its Johnson Ferry Road restaurant.

City Springs also calls for creating a new civic/cultural center that will contain multiple uses such as city offices, meeting space and a performing arts facility. In addition, the city block will encompass a green space network to accommodate a variety of activities.

Mayor Rusty Paul said the project has garnered "a lot of curiosity" from residents as the structures, specifically the performing arts center, begin to take shape.

While it's currently not safe to allow citizens to tour the site in its current state, Paul said he hopes the city could consider hosting open houses when the weather becomes more cooperative and the site is more structured.

"People are excited," he said, noting questions from residents range from what kind of restaurants and retail will open to the public to when will they be able to see shows at the PAC. "There's an enormous amount of interest and excitement about it and when they get a chance to see it, I think they are going to be blown away."

Paul said he's compared Roswell Road to a "broken tiara," and he hopes the City Springs project will "be the crown jewel that will make Roswell Road really the place where everyone wants to come."

While there were some nervousness from some in the community about the $222.7 million project, Paul said a poll conducted before the project got underway revealed that 65 percent of respondents were supportive of the city's plans.

Only 15 percent of those who participated, he said, were against and the remaining folks were undecided, the mayor said.

"You never get a mandate in politics," he added. "But there was at least a large number of citizens (who were) around it that we felt comfortable going forward. And we had a lot of public input on the design of the facility. Now we just got to get it finished so the public can enjoy it. So this is a major milestone."

Now that the project is out of the ground, Paul said crews will begin work on the interiors so it can open "hopefully" in about 18 months.

Images via Kristal Dixon