The former SunTrust bank building fronting the redeveloped Sprayberry Crossing site on Sandy Plains Road is scheduled for demolition, clearing the last blighted structure from one of East Cobb's longest-vacant commercial properties.

East Cobb News reported Wednesday, Aug. 26, that the 3,600-square-foot building will "soon be coming down" after nearby residents spent weeks and months pressing for its removal. The vacant bank building sits across from the intersection of Sandy Plains and Kinjac roads, in front of the former Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center site, and will give way to a Chipotle restaurant.

Cobb Code Enforcement has cited the property's owner, CMG Marietta 2 LLC, a Florida-based commercial real estate company that bought the 0.85-acre parcel at 2674 Sandy Plains Road in February for $1.75 million from Hong Tran and Hahn H. Tran, who had owned it since acquiring it from SunTrust in 2017. A Sept. 3 court date has been set to hear the citations, and a land-disturbance permit has been issued.

In an Aug. 11 post on the Sandy Plains Area Residents Coalition Facebook page, Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said the cleanup took longer than expected because the property's owner initially was not served properly, requiring the process to start over. She said the Chipotle proposal, which does not require rezoning, is in site plan review and has been signed off on by most county departments.

That process took years.

Demolition of the main Sprayberry Crossing shopping center began in April 2022, starting with the former Bruno's grocery store. The site has sat largely empty since, surrounded by fencing.

Redevelopment plans

The Cobb Board of Commissioners approved rezoning of the Sprayberry Crossing property in 2021. Developer Atlantic Residential is redeveloping the site under the name East Cobb Walk.

East Cobb News reported in April 2023 that the project's first phase calls for a 132-unit apartment building for seniors aged 55 and older. A second phase calls for 102 townhomes built by Toll Brothers, each approximately 2,000 square feet.

Retail plans have shrunk since the original approval. The 2021 rezoning called for more than 30,000 square feet of retail space. A later site plan reduced that to 14,500 square feet. The Lidl grocery chain had backed out of the project earlier, citing traffic access problems.

Neighbors pushed back

Tim Carini, who organized the Facebook group "Residents Against Apartments At Sprayberry Crossing," criticized the reduced retail footprint when the redevelopment plan was announced in April 2023.

"The County needs to hold this developer to that number," Carini told East Cobb News at the time, referring to the retail square footage in the rezoning approval. "Without this retail for the community, all we are getting is apartments and townhomes that are squeezed as tight as possible into this property."

Atlantic Residential CEO Richard Aaronson told Shane Spink, a citizen who had led community support for the redevelopment, in April 2023 that the company would circulate an updated site plan and intended to market the commercial parcel once site work began.

The EVOQ East Cobb senior apartment complex began leasing about two years ago, and Toll Brothers is completing the East Cobb Walk townhomes, East Cobb News reported in its Aug. 26 story. No date has been set for demolition of the SunTrust building beyond the pending Sept. 3 court hearing on the code violations.