also invested millions in renovation
and rehab work on the properties. The
purchases, and vision of what these
buildings can become, could fundamentally
change the downtown landscape of
Madison and add to a $50 million real
estate portfolio that includes apartment
buildings in Atlanta and single family
rental homes in Madison.
He comes to work in a late model Ford
F 150 wearing khaki cargo pants and
begs off for a minute to make a Kuerig
cup of coffee. “I’ve got to get some fuel.”
It’s 8 a.m. and he’s ready to go, ready
for “a full day.”
“They’re good that way,” he says.
The young developer has cast a wide
real estate net across the small pond of
Morgan County. According to Monica
Callahan, planning and development
director for the City of Madison, in the
year 2000 downtown Madison had one
72 LAKE OCONEE LIVING | FALL 2021
living housing unit. Over the next 20
years, she says, the roughly six block by
two block area has seen the building or
development of roughly 40 units, or two
per year on average.
By the end of the year, Snyder says, he
should have 21 more units open for rent
in Madison’s downtown area, all in a less
than a year. “The volume, square footage
and tenure of what Preston is building is
different,” says Callahan. “It’s not more
of what we’ve got, it’s a different pattern
of development.”
Snyder has purchased several historic
buildings and is in the process of repurposing
them into loft living, restaurants
and ground floor retail space. So far, he
says, as a project comes complete the
units are filled with renters and begin
to produce income. Work has finished
on the old Swords Building (Madison
Gift Mart and Cafe) on West Washington
Street where three loft apartments
now sit over a large retail space. Work
continues on the Old Simmons Funeral
Home building on East Washington
Street and the entire block of buildings
on Hancock Street that now include an
Italian restaurant, an organic grocery
store operated by Snyder’s wife, Cindi
Fetch, his corporate headquarters and,
soon, a coffee house and wine bar.
He also purchased the Vason Building
on Madison’s Main Street. That building,
according to Callahan has been
in the same family since the 60s - the
Chef Ryan Caldwell, left, and
developer Preston Snyder, right,
prepare to open Mad Taco in
downtown Madison this fall.
Caldwell is serving as the culinary
director for more of Snyder’s
projects, including The Sinclair, a
coffee and tapas bar across from
the courthouse, and a British pub
concept planned for the space next
door to Mad Taco.
1860s, that is.
Snyder said Madison hurled imprecations
at him while he was trying to make
routine drives from his Lake Oconee
house to Atlanta to tend a growing real
estate concern. In 2016, he was dealing
with a cancer diagnosis (all cleared now)
and a newborn and a thriving business
more than an hour away. Growing up
in Milledgeville, he says he knew of
Madison’s charms and he was avoiding
Interstate 20.
“When you’ve got this curse that I have
you cannot look at real estate and see
signs without getting interested and
intrigued. I think I saw a sign in front
of Dr. Weaver’s old office and it looked
like it was a little bit bedraggled and it
had been sitting here for a minute but it
was a cool building with nice bones and
I recognized the name on the sign was
somebody I had gone to school with and
hadn’t spoken to in 25 years. I gave Joey
Eidson a call and said, ‘How you been?’”
That meeting led to Snyder’s introduction