Dan Cathy and Partners Reveal Details For Pinewood Forrest

Residential options would include tiny homes and tree houses.

Residential options would include tiny homes and tree houses.

A creative new-urban development is planned in Fayetteville.

Sign up now to get our Daily Breaking News Alerts

Opt out at anytime

Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy and partners today announced details of a 234-acre master-planned residential and mixed-use project 24 miles from Downtown Atlanta.

Called Pinewood Forrest, the development is intended to be a community centered around “storytellers, the creative and the-creative-at-heart.”

The project would be a “companion community” to Pinewood Studios, located just across the street. The film complex is considered to be one of the most technologically-advanced in North America.

“We’ve been very careful to envision a community that will attract a wide spectrum of people, that will inspire folks to live well, and to honor others. I believe this is the model for future generations,” said Cathy in a prepared statement.

The team behind the project includes project management by Pace Lynch Corp. and town planning by Lew Oliver of Whole Town Solutions.

Pinewood Forrest would include a culinary district, garden district, craft district and woodland district. The development’s “village square” would to be within a five minute walk of each.

The residential component would consist of 1,300 units including single-family homes, micro-cottages (otherwise known as “tiny homes”), multi-family flats, townhomes and even tree houses.

A boutique hotel is also in the works as is 275,000 square feet of commercial office, street level retail and restaurants, which would all be located in the village square.

Over 15 miles of trails and pathways would meander through Pinewood Forrest along with 118 total acres of public green space – just a little over half of the site.

What are your thoughts on the project? Tell us below…

Julia Sirb

Julia Sirb

Julia studied Urban Planning and Economic Development at GSU's School of Policy Studies. She is interested in the way a city's built environment, policy decisions, and economy work together to shape its culture. When not typing, she's writing calligraphy or looking for the next great shot through the lens of her medium format film camera.
Julia Sirb

Julia Sirb

Julia studied Urban Planning and Economic Development at GSU's School of Policy Studies. She is interested in the way a city's built environment, policy decisions, and economy work together to shape its culture. When not typing, she's writing calligraphy or looking for the next great shot through the lens of her medium format film camera.

26 Responses

  1. this is just like Serenbe. can i get off a train and be in the center of it? no? then i don’t care. its not a sustainable community unless people truly CAN live AND work there. people will have to drive to/from and park here. it’s suburbia at its worst.

  2. It’s a great idea and a step in the right direction. I like the micro home idea!! I wouldn’t want any trains pulling through there… an invitation for “problems” nor would I commute to Alpharetta and live here. But, I think the key here is people don’t realize what is actually taking shape in Pinewood for the future. I think it’s exciting!

    1. Car to elaborate on “an invitation for “problems””. What “problems” come with heavy rail transit?

      1. Seriously? “What problems?” The start, unfettered reality is that mass transport has a known issue with an increase in crime. Period. Stereotyping, you say? Well, let me tell you this, dear…stereotypes get created for a REASON. And that reason is that the tendency toward whatever the stereotype is pointing. Period. End of story.

        1. Such BS! I lived near the end of the Marta line up 400 in Roswell in the early 2000’s. That didn’t cause an increase in crime for those rich folk who said the very same crap! I’ll tell you what it did do is allow people to get to work in the city and travelers to the airport without causing them too much hassle. They have heavy rail all over the extremely rich areas in Chicago and don’t have the issues you say. Criminals can use cars not the train if they feel like they have found a gold mine for themselves, oh that’s how all these criminals are coming to Peachtree City as we speak!

        1. Thank you for this reply. Why do people want to put their heads in the sand about mass transit and increasing crime????

  3. Can I move my Tiny House (on wheels) here? I’m a freelance designer/illustrator so I can work from my house/studio! Please say yes! It’s a really cool looking tiny house!

  4. I live 3 miles from Pinewood Studios; have lived here since 1987. Fayetteville and North Fayette county have declined significantly in the past 10 years or so. I can’t imagine why people would want to live in Pinewood Forrest. All it’s going to do is increase the traffic and wear and tear on the roads. It truly saddens me that developers continue to rape and pillage the land while claiming they are improving the community. 🙂

    1. I’m confused. Is your problem with decline or growth? My best friend’s parents have lived walking distance from what is now Pinewood for over 10 years. That area has not been in decline at all. Of course, Pinewood has kicked things into high gear. Growth does indeed put more wear on roads. It also adds to the tax base. The mobile home on the current site is more of a quaint, country feel, but this plan seems like a great idea for improvement. The only worry I have is for how it will pull focus from the downtown area.

      1. Obviously the “growth”. I Live at “Ground Zero” have for years… Have seen many different growth debacles. from Sun City, RIver’s Elementary. West Bypass, Pinewood…. Growth is coming, unavoidable. What concerns us that live here are things like the concessions the county/city made and the ease at which they made them. I think our greatest fear is the what next? While the Developers have a vision of what the area could be, it is not an absolute.

        Examples:
        1.We are gonna build River’s Elementary to handle all the proposed community developement ….. never happened.
        2.We are gonna build the East bypass to handle traffic around fayetteville,….ok make that the west bypasss…..ok ok too many folks upset so we are gonna stop building the bypass. result, developers access built. plan all along? Yep.
        3.The Original “plan” for Pinewood Forrest has changed numerous, numerous times.Originally when proposed, it was sold to the Local Community as Housing with million $$ homes for the rich Studio workers. Now it’s a plan with a lot of $200k homes with a special zoning variance to cram even more in. The Developers tout this as an area to live and then to work next door, reality is this. They will sell to anybody wanting/able to buy. No stipulation that you have to work at the studio to live here. They are here to make money plain and simple, Which is why their plan is in phases and will adjust their plans as to how the current phase sells. So if the studios for some reason fail/stagnate, what happens with all this housing then add the possibility of Mr Cathy’s wish to have Marta here?

        Anything is possible, who knows, i could be sitting on a gold mine. But that is not the reason I or my neighbors moved here. We have had to hear a lot of great plans/ideas over the years but had to deal with a different outcome.

        I do believe that in 5-10 years years most of us here will have left. Either “cashed out” or running from the blight and then looking for a neighborhood that was like the one they had.

        1. And on top of that MOST all that work there already have homes, so why move? And two, Pinewood is only a “rental” for services so as soon as a production is done, they go back home where ever that might be. I liked the plan of the animal wrangler that was to be located where these 300+ homes on 280+ acres are now going to be. Reminds me of LA (California) a field by my parents house that had cows and you could buy fresh milk and other products. Now that field holds 300 or more condo’s. There are so many empty houses and land that had started to build but builder ran out of money and stopped…buy and continue there for goodness sakes, half the work is already done!

  5. Is there a green space set aside? Conservation Communities set aside green space to insure that wall to wall development does not occur over time and to help protect the surrounding natural resources – in a suburban or rural area that is usually a minimum of 50% of the buildable area and often more and is “contiguous” – not a patchwork of micro spaces –

  6. Exciting , I would love to know more about the Micro homes ! May be just what I have been waiting on !

  7. Please, all this will do is create traffic problems that engineers have no idea to solve!! Has anyone notice the debacle that the new shopping center in Peachtree city has caused. Traffic is horrible in that area, I just don’t think these so called engineers have solutions to the problems. As for a train bringing in crime is such BS!! I lived in Roswell area where the north line ends for Marta and no increase in crime in those nice areas near the station. Having lived in Chicago suburban areas, trains don’t a to crime, what they do is allow people to get to work without adding to traffic on the roads.

  8. Because there is such an incredible amount of employees at Pinewood Studios, I think this is the ideal place for them to live. I also think this place can be utilized for the traffic of people in the entertainment business who use temporary housing. Some projects can shoot for up to three years or more. For people who are looking for an investment, if the community will allow renting, this sounds like a money maker to me. I don’t think they are building this for people who live and work far away. Getting a commuter bus set up for the train station would solve the issue that others were talking about convenience. It also, speaks to me, of community…within the arts specifically. The people, in my world (show business) – we all “get” each other and the acceptance of that notion, connects most artists in their philosophy to live in communion. I am definitely interested into finding out more and hoping deeply for its success.

Leave a Reply to Rick Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

Search