Costco on Bass Road approved by Macon P&Z

After nearly three years of whispers and possibilities, Costco officially announced its intention to build a 158,000-square-foot warehouse store across from Dillard’s behind the Shoppes at River Crossing. 

Although the address is 1990 Bass Road, the proposed shopping center with 873 parking stalls and 32 fueling stations fronts Wesleyan Drive at the corner of New Forsyth Road in north Macon. 

The Costco plans include new traffic lights at parking lot entrances on Wesleyan and New Forsyth, along with a third light at the corner of New Forsyth and Bass roads for the busy intersection near the Academy for Classical Education. 

The store is expected to generate more than 6,374 vehicle trips per weekday and up to 8,300 Saturday trips on Macon roads, but the widening of Bass Road won’t begin until mid-2028. 

As Costco engineer Julie Miller successfully requested highway commercial zoning Monday for a nearly 23-acre parcel that was zoned for planned development-mixed use, P&Z Chair Jeane Easom asked: “And you can say this is a Costco?”

“I can say it is a Costco,” the engineer replied. 

That wasn’t the case in 2023 when New Forsyth Associates secured conditional use approval for an unnamed wholesale club warehouse and other stores on more than 48 acres across New Forsyth Road. 

That approval expired, but Costco was back to P&Z late last year with a draft of this proposal, which The Macon Newsroom reported in December. 

The store plans to hire up to 200 people at its opening.

Last month during the taping of Ask Mayor Miller, Mayor Lester Miller said he’s already looking ahead toward more commercial development on that larger site.

“It’s still going to be a development across the street from Costco as well, and I can’t wait to announce that. Hopefully, it happens when I’m still the mayor, but otherwise I’m still going to be a part of it,” Miller said.

He hinted in January, “Where Costco goes, you’re usually going to see a Trader Joe’s. They go well together… like peas and carrots.”

Commercial corner at Bass and Rivoli

Northwest Macon Presbyterian Church member Joe Timberlake opposed plans for a convenience store next to the church a few years ago, but during Monday’s P&Z hearing he endorsed two professional office buildings at the corner of Bass Road and Rivoli Drive.

“I’m telling you that this is the best opportunity we have to have a decent facility there on the corner,” Timberlake said. 

Dr. Rana Munna plans to relocate her office from off New Forsyth Road because of her patients’ traffic concerns with the Academy for Classical Education.

A second tenant has not been secured, but engineer Steven Rowland believes it will likely be a medical office and secured conditional use approval for that. 

Rowland successfully argued to rezone more than nine acres of agricultural and two-family residential areas to neighborhood commercial.

Neighbor Elmo Richardson, who has lived on Rivoli for nearly 50 years, opposed the “spot zoning” plan although C-1 is the lightest commercial use.

“We’ve got a span of over three miles of essentially single-family residential properties. To rezone to C-1 right in the middle of all the single-family residential destroys the integrity of the neighborhood,” Richardson said. 

Two upscale Truitt Preserve residential neighborhoods are planned on both sides of Rivoli and Rowland said the office buildings will complement those developments.

“If you have seen the proposed building, this is a very attractive site, very attractive building, highly landscaped,” Rowland said. 

Time lapse kills Mead Road transfer station plan

Receiving planning and zoning approval for a project is only the first step toward construction. Other pertinent agencies such as the Macon Water Authority, Fire Department or Macon-Bibb County Health Department have to review a project in order to secure a building permit. 

If construction does not begin within a year, P&Z’s approval expires and the applicant must reapply. 

The expiration of P&Z’s October 2023 conditional use approval for a contested Mead Road waste transfer station proved to be costly for MMM Transfer Station LLC.

In January of 2024, months after Eberhardt Industries and Mead Road Environmental 2 revised its site plans to address complaints from nearby residents and stakeholders and then secured P&Z approval, MMM bought the land but did not pursue a permit or begin construction. 

Although P&Z staff sent Guy Eberhardt a courtesy notice that his permit was about to expire in October of 2024, that message never got to the new owners. P&Z was not notified of a change of ownership, which is needed to assume the existing approval.

Mayor Miller plans for Macon-Bibb County to build its own solid waste transfer system to more efficiently move waste to out-of-town landfills. In September of 2023, the county imposed a moratorium on new facilities until the Solid Waste Management Plan, SWMP, could be updated. 

Because Eberhardt’s P&Z application was already underway, it was exempt from the moratorium. 

MMM applied for an extension, but P&Z Attorney Pope Langstaff said because the zoning approval expired, there was nothing to extend. The time to apply for an extension is before approval expires, Landstaff said. 

At its June 2 meeting, county commissioners lifted the moratorium and adopted the SWMP that now prevents solid waste facilities within a mile of residences, schools, churches and recreation areas. 

MMM can no longer file a new application for the site because of the new one-mile restriction.

Peyton Anderson Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at fabian_lj@mercer.edu or 478-301-2976.