After ten years in the making, land has started being cleared for a 22 acre Holly Springs Town Center that will include restaurants, retail, civic buildings, an amphitheater, homes, assisted living, town homes, millennial 
rental units, green space and parking for downtown in Holly Springs. It will create an entire new downtown area at the intersection of Holly Springs Parkway and Hickory Flat Road.
WSBTV Channel 2 ran a story about the new City Center and we contacted Erin Honea, the city’s Main Street Development director for some more information. Honea stated:
The new town center development will truly be a “live, work, play” project.
While there is not a completion date yet, the City hopes to have a master developer in place by the end of 2016, and break ground in 2017.
Honea also said that here is not a specific list of retail businesses for the town center yet, a 2015 marketing study completed by Bleakly Advisory Group found that there are opportunity gaps for the types of businesses that generally comprise successful Atlanta-area town center developments within a two mile trade radius. The study specifically noted that there were opportunity gaps for restaurants, clothing stores, and general merchandise stores.
The estimated $15.7 million project will be funded by private-sector developers pursuant to a development agreement. The City of Holly Springs has proposed using a Tax Allocation District (TAD) to fund the construction of public sector infrastructure on the site. The City also plans to seek approval from the state legislature in 2017 to form a Community Improvement District (CID) to fund future infrastructure improvements projects in downtown. For those that drive those roads, I am sure one area of concern is widening them especially with the buses and schools on that street.
In the future, city events, like the Easter Egg Hunt, Autumn Fest, and Christmas Parade will be held in the heart of the city. Of course, the plan is subject to change and must be formally adopted by the Holly Springs City Council prior to the execution of a development agreement. As a resident of Canton, which is a close neighbor to Holly Springs, I am excited to see this area develop and offer more restaurant and retail options.
The firm Wakefield Beasley and Associates also developed Lakepoint, Avalon, and Atlantic Station.
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Related stories include the City of Canton’s Etowah to the Loop plan and Mixed Use Development.
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