City Government

Community Meeting Hosted by Kane Studio

Presented plan for Project Rosebud followed by Q&A session

By Laurie Searle, with

Photos

by Chip Denton

Representatives from Kane Studio hosted a community meeting on April 18 to present their plan and answer questions about Project Rosebud – a proposed mixed-use development with 3,454,300 SF including motion picture studio space with just over 1,000,000 SF, of sound stages, office, hotel, retail, and family units, located on a 1,688acre site in Chattahoochee Hills, bordered by Jones Ferry Road, Campbellton Redwine Road, and the Chattahoochee River.

The meeting was offered in-person at city hall and virtually via ZOOM. The ZOOM recording is available on the city’s website. A summary of the meeting follows.

Background

Carl Westmoreland, consultant for Project Rosebud, began the presentation with a background of the project. The application for Phase 1 of the project was initially submitted to the City of Chattahoochee Hills last spring (June 2022). After receiving input from the city and residents, Kane Studio withdrew the application, made revisions, and resubmitted an application encompassing all 5 phases of the project. The scale of the project required a “Development of Regional Impact” (DRI) review by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA). The DRI results were received the week of April 10, and with the positive decision by ARC, the project team scheduled this community meeting.

Not mentioned by Carl, but worth noting for this article, was the preliminary comments in the DRI review notification that began with the following key comments:

“The project demonstrates an exemplary approach to following applicable Rural Areas policy recommendations set forth in the Atlanta Region’s Plan which stress the need to protect rural areas and their character" and note: “There is a strong desire from residents and elected officials in these areas to keep them rural…The region is striving to protect these areas by limiting infrastructure investments to targeted areas and allowing no development or only low impact development.”

Carl said, “The rural character was one of the main features that sparked an interest in this area by Kane Studio CEO, Patrick Millsaps. Patrick is a Georgia native; he grew up in Cobb County, went to law school at University of Georgia, lives in Albany GA, and has been in the film business for the past 12 years. So, he’s a native, not somebody from outside of Georgia."

“Movie studios are a big business in Georgia. A news story reported that Georgia has surpassed New York and is second only to California in the nation in terms of movie studio square footage. It is an important component to Georgia’s economy. You may be familiar with other studio operations in the area such as Trilith, Shadowbox in DeKalb, and The Assembly in Doraville. They are different than Rosebud because they don’t fit in with the concept Chattahoochee Hills has had which is to keep the appearance of things rural, to keep the visibility of large buildings away from the street. We’re fortunately able to do that on this size of a tract.”

Updated Site Plan

The current Project Rosebud application requests rezoning of the proposed property from RL (rural district) to HM-MU (mixed use hamlet district). It includes the following special use permits and variance requests, as well as tangible benefits to the City: