Last week Becky and I took a week and went to Georgia and Florida. We drove down to Atlanta on Thanksgiving Day and spent that weekend with one of my best friends, Kim Whitten, who was also my secretary at my previous employer. We spent the weekend with her family before going on to Florida and Key West. We came back and stayed with them for the weekend on the return leg of our trip as well. Even when I lived there, I referred to the area as Atlanta, but in reality, Kim lives in Suwanee, Georgia. (Yeah, like the song.)
In touring around our old stomping grounds, we went to see Suwanee Town Center. Rather than trying to revive the old downtown, Suwanee chose to create a new town center. It is a P.U.D. in its truest sense, combining public service space, park space, commercial space and a range of residential types. Read more about it here and here.
The Suwanee Town Center states their vision as “live…work…play…shop.” This is something I would like to emulate in my proposed Sand Hill Farm development. There are differences. The Sand Hill Farm property is approximately 2/3rds the size and I have no vision for Sand Hill Farm to take the place of Downtown Culver. Also, in keeping with the vision presented by the Culver Redevelopment Commission, I would like to keep an option open for a light industrial aspect to the development.