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n NEWS & NOTEWORTHY n
After $17 million
purchase, new owners
hope to make Marietta
Station a ‘destination’
The real estate brokers who have
purchased more than four acres of
downtown real estate said they hope to turn
their properties, located along Church Street
north of Marietta Square, into a bustling
mixed-use destination.
“I think we would like to extend the
destination that is currently Marietta Square
up and into really this entire block,” said Jack
Arnold, co-founder and principal of Atlantabased
Bridger Properties. “That means
activity sort of all the time. Saturday morning
at 10, there’s not a lot of action in the oces.
So, how do we create something that’s alive,
not just during oce hours?”
Bridger in late January purchased the
properties from Marietta’s Eubanks family.
The total sale price was about $17.35 million,
according to Cobb property records.
The seven properties include roughly
97,000 square feet of building space, spread
across the historic Marietta Station oce
buildings, Marietta Square Market food hall
and several retail storefronts along Church
Street. Bridger also now owns the pedestrian
bridge that spans the railroad tracks, and
a 1.25-acre parking lot just north of the
food hall. The firm has 79 clients spread
throughout the properties.
The deal is probably the largest ever
private real estate transaction in downtown
Marietta, reckons former Councilman Philip
Goldstein, whose family owns the lion’s share
of private property on Marietta Square.
Selling all of the properties together makes
it even more valuable, Goldstein said. The
whole is greater than the sum of its parts.The
total appraised value of all the properties —
as calculated by the county — is about $11
million.
Arnold and his business partner, Merritt
Lancaster, said the firm has established a
management oce on site and is in the
process of repairing the stairs that provide
access to the pedestrian bridge.
The duo has also met with city ocials,
such as city Economic Development Director
Daniel Cummings. Bridger, Cummings said,
wanted to introduce themselves and learn as
much as possible about the area.
“It was really ... a lot of background
information, just about some of the moving
parts on the Square and the dierent groups
that operate, and a little bit of the history and
the development of the Square,” Cummings
said. “A lot of it was probably things that they
had done in their preliminary research ...
Nothing specific, but more just general kind
of perspective — where the Square’s been,
and maybe where it’s going.”
Bridger has been guarded about its plans
for the property. Arnold and Lancaster said
locals have told the owners that they’d like to
see a grocery store or more full-service food
and beverage options in the area (most of the
food hall’s tenants are counter service).
Northpond Partners, a Chicago-based
private equity group, is an equity partner
in the deal. A description of Marietta
Station on Northpond’s website says that
the area includes “at least one residential
development opportunity.”Arnold and
Lancaster said there were no immediate
plans for residential development. They also
said there were no plans “in the near term”
for the parking lot north of the food hall.
The two men spoke of providing more
dynamic and vibrant uses to Church Street,
which is sleepier than the Square once the
oces close for the day.
“It fits the strict technical definition of
mixed use, in that we have oce and retail
uses,” Lancaster said. “And we’d like to sort
of update it to kind of the modern definition
of mixed use, where it’s a mix of uses
cohesively.”
Love and stories: under
new leadership, Powder
Springs bookstore charts
new path
In early 2020, as a new virus was spreading
on the other side of the world, children’s
book author Julia Davis walked into the Book
Worm, a small, cramped bookstore facing the
city’s main drag, the inside a beautiful, floorto
ceiling mess of used books.
She fell in love. In conversation with
the store’s owner, Susan Smelser, Davis
mentioned she lived in Austell. Smelser noted
there were no bookstores over there.
“And I was like, ‘Well, that’s my dream,
to open (one),’” Davis recalled saying. “And
she’s like, ‘Funny you mention that, because
I’m ready to retire. And I’m selling my
business.’”
In November of that year, Davis realized
her lifelong dream and took ownership of
the Book Worm. She is now on a mission to
create a space in this small southern town
where everyone can find writing that speaks
to them. In the process, she has had to
contend, she said, with the petty prejudices
that burden life as a Black business owner, as
well as the challenge of taking a beloved city
institution and making it one’s own.
As her mother tells it, Davis has been
reading since she was two years old. To this
day, Davis can finish a book in a single day. To
this day, it leaves her mother incredulous.
“She’s like, ‘You just finished that?’” Davis
said, quoting her mother in a tone of mock
astonishment. “I’ve always loved to read.
When people back home in New York
realized I owned a bookstore, they were like,
‘I’m not surprised, you always had a book in
your hand.’”
Pressed for a favorite author, Davis said
she doesn’t really have one — “I just love to
read” — but acknowledged that she probably
wouldn’t be the person she is today if not
for “Charlotte’s Web” and the books of Judy
Blume.
“I think one of the reasons I always wanted
to write and I think I fell in love with reading
was Judy Blume,” she said.
Born and raised just north of New York
City, Davis managed law firms before moving
Merritt Lancaster, left, and Jack Arnold outside
Marietta Station. Their firm, Bridger Properties,
bought the historic oce buildings, along with
several storefronts, parking lots and the
Marietta Square Market food hall from
Marietta’s Eubanks family.
124 COBB LIFE | MARCH 2022