Woodstock Approves New Outlet Mall Parking Lot

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The Woodstock City Council at its Monday meeting approved a request to construct an additional parking lot at the Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta.

Council members voted to approve the request as well as approving an agenda item to waive the public input meeting and Planning Commission public hearing in connection to the proposal.

City Manager Jeff Moon said waiving the public input meeting and Commission hearing would allow the development to get the parking lot in place before the holiday shopping season starts.

The lot in question, Community Development Director Brantley Day said, is currently gravel and not striped, and is already being used for overflow parking at the retail development.

Horizon Group Properties, the developer of the outlet mall, petitioned the city for the lot, and plans to add 272 parking spaces and a sidewalk to connect to an existing path along Woodstock Parkway.

Tom Rumptz, senior vice president at Horizon Group Properties, said the development has been “challenged” with parking conditions at the mall. Currently, store employees are being directed to park in different areas farthest away from the shops to provide customers with the most prime spots.

With this new lot, employees will have a designated location for parking. He also said he hopes to have the project up and running as Horizon is hoping to open phase two of the development in mid-November. This upcoming phase is slated to bring high-end retailers such as Banana Republic and Gap, which could translate into increased sales.

“We are expecting a lot more traffic on that end of the center,” he added.

Initially, Horizon was not planning to install lighting in the parking lot. Rumptz stated developers believed the existing lighting along Woodstock Parkway would be sufficient for employees.

However, Council members disagreed, and approved the request with the stipulation that the company must install dark-skies complaint lighting as part of the project.

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Image via Shutterstock