Academy Sports Retailer to Open in July

(Updated 9:50 a.m., June 9, with information on McDonough store.)

Academy Sports + Outdoor, a premier sports retailer with locations in 11 states, is expected to open its newest Georgia site on July 1 in Snellville, according to representatives from the Texas-based company.

The Snellville site, at Janmar Road and Scenic Highway, will be the second metro-Atlanta location for the sporting goods retailer. Other locations in the state are: Athens, Evans and Macon, Ga., according to the company website. (A spokeswoman for the company said Thursday, June 9, that there is also a McDonough site that opened in April; that site was not listed on the company's list of stores, as of late June 8.)

The new facility will feature a 66,500-square-foot building on seven acres. Two other outparcels at the location will have either a restaurant or future retail establishment, including a planned Olive Garden. City planning officials said the Olive Garden will begin construction soon.

Academy Sports + Outdoors will employ about 150 associates, many of those have already been hired, said Elise Hasbrook, senior communications manager with the company. In addition, there will be a private soft-opening on June 30 and a fund-raiser with the Atlanta Braves, she added.

City officials green-lit the facility a year ago, after Ram Realty Services (with its subsidiary Snellville HDLS Plus, LLC) submitted an application in June 2010 to turn the property area into one for general business use. Previously, the site was zoned for "highway service business" and "office professional," and in 2010 was then the site of  two vacant businesses: a landscape supply center run by Home Depot, and a new and used car Lincoln-Mercury dealership. The Home Depot site shuttered in 2008, and the dealership closed in 2006.

The "highway service zoning" allowed for many more uses than the general business use, and the applicants said at the time that the new use would "assist then city in continuing to provide safe and hamonious growth within the city." Along with retail, the Academy Sports facility will have new trees, additional landscpaing and about 30 parking spaces.

When complete, the entire retail complex will join several other business already nearby: a , a , , , and Brookwood Family Medicine, which is located at 1550 Janmar Road. The are several residential subdivisions nearby, as well.

City planning staff recommended the project in August 2010, stating that the old vacant lots would be "replaced with a new fully landscaped and aesthetically pleasing and thriving commercial development. And second, the additional retail and restaurant uses will support the city’s economic development plans.

"In addition, Academy Sports and Outdoors, the major tenant of this project, brings a much anticipated sporting goods store to the local community. Another benefit is the two potential restaurants/retail outparcels that will be created.

"These additions will provide more consumer choice to the already diverse Scenic Highway corridor."