This post will provide more information on those Character Areas that serve primarily as Employment Centers. Character Areas are geographical areas that have a similar look and feel. They may have similar land uses, or they may have land uses that are definitive of a specific time period, purpose or aspiration.
Five Character Areas in our Employment Centers are primarily focused on a single type of development.
The Data District is home to new large-scale, light industrial, technology and data centers. These include companies such as Google and Amazon. Most of this development has come about in the last 10-15 years, and is largely contained to this specific area of county due to logical boundaries imposed by city and county lines, Interstate 20 and Sweetwater Creek State Park.
The Data District is above in pink; Campbellton West is above in blue. Sweetwater Creek State Park is the area highlighted in green.
Similar to the Data District, Campbellton West is a smaller node industrial zoning at the county boundary on Highway 92/166/154 in proximity to Fulton County. It reflects a legacy of older industrial uses, and should largely be contained to its existing footprint.
Westfork is a master-planned commercial-industrial district. It was first zoned in the 1970s with a vision to be a regional shopping and employment center. It is still a dense mixed use area of commercial and industrial uses that will benefit from a refreshed vision of the Planned Unit Development.
Westfork's land use plan from a 1970s concept document in the Planning and Zoning Archives.
Westfork is the are in blue; the Quarry is the area in grey. Historic Lithia Springs is highlighted in green and will be discussed in a later post.
The Quarry area is another legacy industrial that harkens to the construction of I-20 in the 1960s. The quarry was opened to provide aggregate to support the construction of the highway. It is anticipated that it will age out of its useful life, and it will be necessary to plan for the transition in land use for this area.
The county has anticipated an expansion of its workforce footprint to the western side of Douglasville since at least 2004. This plan refines this vision into a Workplace Campus, the fourth Character Area with a focus on employment. Similar to the other three, it would be contained within an established footprint and buffered from incompatible uses. It is envisioned to develop as a concentration of technology jobs in a campus-like setting and limits on truck-oriented uses.
The Workplace Campus is the area in dark purple, surrounded by the Winston Character Area in light purple. Winston will be discussed in a later post.
The Workplace Campus is dissimilar from the other three areas in that it currently remains largely undeveloped and rural-residential in nature. The area lacks infrastructure and other utilities to develop at this time. But it is critical to define the vision for this area so as to manage future growth that reflects the desire of the community.