Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

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COLUMBIA COUNTY Downtown in the SUBURBS Meybohm Vice President of Leasing Paul Myers, from left, Meybohm CEO Mike Polatty and Meybohm Commercial Development Director Jordan Collier stand in one of the company’s commercial suites overlooking the Columbia County Performing Arts Center in Evans. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] Evans’ The Plaza development puts quality before expediency By DAMON CLINE Urban downtowns don’t sprout up overnight – and neither do made-from-scratch ones in the suburbs. This is why business and government leaders in Columbia County are not overly concerned with the plodding pace of its citycenter development – The Plaza at Evans Towne Center. Officials are more concerned that the 26-acre development – sandwiched between Towne Center Park’s Lady Antebellum Pavilion and the future Columbia County Performing Arts Center – is done right than done quickly. “The public wants to see it all built out overnight, but the truth is, how you do this first building is going to set the tone for everything else,” said Mike Polatty, president of Meybohm Real Estate, the developer of The Plaza’s cornerstone commercial building. The 58,000-square-foot mid-rise that opened last fall is just 43% occupied – with virtually all of that space taken by Meybohm company operations. 48 | 1736magazine.com 1117_T_48_AM____.indd 48 10/25/2019 12:30:53 PM
The low occupancy isn’t a sign of weak market demand so much as Meybohm’s admittedly stringent standards. The company isn’t developing just another shopping center; it’s trying to create a walkable, highdensity development brimming with niche tenants and an upscale flair. Company officials point to developments such as Revel in Gwinett County, Avalon in Alpharetta, Ga., and Charlotte N.C.’s Birkdale Village. The closest analogue in metro Augusta, they say, would be Surrey Center. “Those are the prototypicals,” said Paul Myers, Meybohm’s vice president of leasing. “We’re trying to create a culture around a piece of real estate – where the real estate itself becomes the destination, not necessarily any one retailer.” The vision is aligned with Columbia County’s leadership, which began exploring the concept of creating a “downtown” in Evans through a public-private partnership with Meybohm more than four years ago. The county acquired the 26-acre “Marshall Tract” property in 2010 with the goal of developing a mixeduse space for community gatherings. A deliberately engineered downtown was a product of necessity, as the unincorporated community never had the chance to develop one organically – the high-growth area transitioned from mostly rural to fully suburban in just three decades. “We didn’t have the benefit of an old downtown we could just redo,” Columbia County Administrator Scott Johnson said. “So that was the vision way back then, that there needs to be a downtown area for Columbia County. It’s just very difficult to do that from scratch.” Work progresses on the Columbia County Performing Arts Center in Evans, a central piece to the new-urban The Plaza development. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 1736magazine.com | 49 1117_T_48_AM____.indd 49 10/25/2019 12:30:59 PM
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