WOODSTOCK — A plan to build a soccer stadium, hundreds of apartments, and tens of thousands of square feet of shops and restaurants on a 12-acre tract in Woodstock is dead after the city council voted it down Sept. 14.
What happened: The council rejected a proposal called “The Pitch,” brought by developer Freestone Realty, that would have transformed a 12.81-acre site at the southeast corner of Reagan Street and Ridgewalk Parkway into a mixed-use development anchored by a 2,500-seat soccer stadium. The motion to approve the rezoning and a permit allowing apartments failed 4-2, killing the entire package, including parking variances tied to the project.
The full scope of what was rejected: The proposal was not simply a stadium. All of the following were bundled into a single rezoning request that required council approval:
- A 2,500-seat soccer stadium intended for semi-professional and professional teams, to be operated by Georgia Impact Soccer Club
- Between 185 and 236 apartments, depending on which project document is used
- Up to 26,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space
- Parking variances that relied heavily on the use of Woodstock City Church’s lot across Ridgewalk Parkway
Why the parking mattered: The stadium had no plan to park all its attendees on-site. Draft documents called for the developer to contribute toward improvements to Woodstock City Church’s parking lot nearby, with the city’s Downtown Development Authority making payments to the church when the lot was used for stadium events. Residents and at least one community group, Woodstock CAN, raised concerns about people having to cross Ridgewalk Parkway on foot to get from that lot to the stadium…