In one of their last actions before new council members are sworn in, the Locust Grove city council approved a rezoning and associated comp plan amendment for the Gardner Commerce Center. Plans include one 1.25 million square foot warehouse on eighty-one acres accessible from Colvin Drive.
The council voted 4-1 (Greer opposed; Gardner recused) to amend the comp plan and 5-0 to approve the rezoning. The council rezoned twenty-nine acres located off Jackson Street from RA to M-1 (light manufacturing); the remaining fifty-two acres off Colvin Drive were rezoned to M-1 in 2007.
Zoning conditions require a 15’ landscaped berm along the southern and eastern property lines where abutting residential properties, preserving mature pecan and oak trees located along Jackson Street, and constructing stormwater detention ponds at least five-hundred feet from the southern property line or as close to five-hundred feet as possible. Conditions also prohibit any industrial use other than warehousing and distribution.
The development of regional impact (DRI) review for the project also contemplated a second warehouse on ninety-eight acres north of Colvin Drive. That land was not associated with this request and is presently zoned for residential use.
Locust Grove has approved three industrial projects since 2018
The Gardner Commerce Center is the latest in a series of industrial approvals by the Locust Grove city council in the last two years.
Starting in May 2018, the council unanimously approved the Gardner Farms Logistics Park that’s now under construction off highway 42. Originally consisting of one-hundred twenty acres, the developer later added ninety-six acres to better support the needs of the planned tenant in building B.
On the west side of Interstate 75 along Price Drive, phase II of the ClayCo development was rezoned in January 2019. Five warehouses are planned on the two-hundred sixty-four acre property.