Politics & Government

Community College eyes Smyrna's Cobb Center Mall

City council to hear presentation Monday night concerning possible Georgia Highlands College campus location at the South Cobb Drive mall.

It would appear that Cobb Center Mall on South Cobb Drive at Pat Mell Road might be getting a new tenant.

At Monday night’s Smyrna City Council meeting, the council will consider for approval a resolution authorizing adoption of an Intergovernmental Agreement between the City and the Downtown Development Authority and the Board of Regents Lease Agreement to support the establishment of Georgia Highlands College at Smyrna.

Georgia Highlands College is a two-year, associate degree-granting community college of the System of Georgia. Founded in Floyd County 41 years ago, the college is non-residential and maintains six sites including those in Rome, Cartersville, Marietta, Dallas and Douglasville.

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The college began in 1970, but Cobb Center is older than that having opened as the state’s second shopping mall when it served its first customers as the Cobb County Shopping Center exactly 48 years ago today.

Once the premier shopping destination in the area, Cobb Center took a hit when department stores such as Rich’s and Woolworth’s closed their doors as the neighborhood around the shopping center deteriorated.

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In December 2008, the council approved a rezoning measure to allow Imagine International Academy (now International Academy of Smyrna) to move into the Rich’s building.

And now it looks as if another school might be calling Cobb Center Mall home as Smyrna Redevelopment Coordinator Andrea Hall is expected to give the council a presentation at Monday’s meeting.

The meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. in the City Hall building located at 2800 King Street. The agenda can be viewed here.

The public is invited, but the meeting will be televised live on Charter Communications Public Access Channel 19. Replays of council meetings air the second and fourth Thursday of the month on Channel 23 at 7 p.m. See the TV23 section at www.cobbcounty.org for a complete rebroadcast schedule.


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