‘I don’t think it can be done’: Local residents question impact of county’s East Bank project

While county leaders, architects and developers have begun envisioning a new future for the former Bibb Mill site on Coliseum Drive, local residents question how the development — dubbed the East Bank project — will impact their neighborhood. 

“This is a site that’s captured the imagination of generations of Maconites since the Bibb Mill went dormant in 1992,” Alex Morrision, Macon-Bibb Director of Planning and Public Spaces and Executive Director of the Urban Development Authority, said at a presentation and public input session Thursday. “We have one chance as a community to get this project right.”

About a dozen community members joined Morrision and designers from HGOR — an Atlanta-based landscape architecture and planning firm —  to provide input on the initial vision for the space during one of two public sessions at the Mill Hill Community Arts Center.

It’s “a” vision but not “the” vision, HGOR principal owner Lauren Standish said, presenting 3D renderings of potential commercial and residential development concepts for the 60-acre space.

Standish and her team also set up multiple posters with collages of design inspiration for attendees to place red or green stickers over ideas they approved or did not want to see implemented.

During the Q&A portion of the meeting, folks asked about the roles of both the county and the contracted firms. 

The East Bank project is a public-private partnership — the county owns the land and contracts with an architecture firm to design the space. A development/investment firm then finds private investors to help fund the project. 

Private investment is necessary for a project of this scale, explained Adam Parker of Carter Real Estate Development and Investment, emphasizing the goal of combining “aspirations” and “market realities.”

“A lot of times people would want there to be more green spaces, more public parks — I want those as well,” Parker said. “But if you’re looking for a private developer to come in and finance something, at the end of the day [with] public parks, there’s no return on investment.”

Community member Jeremy Graves later spoke up against minimizing spaces for folks to sit around or take their kids. 

Residents also voiced concern about displacing existing neighborhoods, but Morrison and Standish clarified that the land for the project is already owned by the city. It includes the former Bibb Mill site, the Coliseum and the former regional commission offices. 

Morrison hopes a collaborative plan will ensure that the East Bank project serves as a “gateway” for the community, without “overvaluing” tourism above existing resident needs. 

“I don’t think it can be done,” Macon resident Cleopatra Simpson said. “There’s no way you can bring in all this stuff that you’re saying you’re going to bring in and it doesn’t affect the surrounding.”

Simpson said she’s not worried about the property they are developing, but the impact on the surrounding area. 

“We are not talking about buying people’s houses and shipping them out somewhere else,” Joe Severin, senior vice president of Carter Real Estate Development and Investment, said. “We’re looking to make this an amenity for this neighborhood.”

Simpson also worries about how development will affect existing residents’ property taxes. Parker offered one solution of working with the local government to freeze taxes for senior citizens and those within a certain income range. 

Long-time resident Angel Irving told Morrison, HGOR and Carter about passing her former neighborhood while driving down Emery Highway.

“That is no longer my neighborhood,”she said. “Because you moved us out, then you put a housing project there.”

Irving questioned how many businesses within the community will benefit from the increased tourism flow brought about by the project. She also asked about collaboration with minority contractors. 

There’s a lot of passion and deep history, Standish said, admitting that she doesn’t have all the answers, but assuring folks that this is the early brainstorming stage of development.

Irving’s concerns and those of her neighbors stem from not wanting to see areas like Pleasant Hill and East Macon disrupted again, District 3 Commissioner Stanley Stewart said, reflecting on the past treatment of historically Black areas of Macon.