Interested parties in our 54 unit Summer Stream subdivision, others from Summer Brooke and Cobb Pky, organized two meetings at the New Beginnings church which is just across Mack Dobbs from our subdivision.
When I learned of the protest meeting I looked up the lands owner, Mr. Celestino Venturi and informed him of the meeting and suggested he attend. He had interests in several upscale Marietta restaurants and also owned a strip mall on Cobb Parkway at Mars Hill Road in Acworth.
Mr. Venturi and about 25 residents attended and it was a good meeting with views exchanged. The general feeling was that something was going to be built there and it was almost certain that the zoning change would take place as scheduled.
Residents concerns were at that point more towards just what would go on that parcel, which was next to the northern end of our development. We had expressed our opinions to Mr. Venturi and some of us attended the October 4, 2004 Kennesaw City Council Meeting where quite a lot of time was devoted to the zoning change. In fact of the 33 pages of minutes of that meeting 14 pages had to do with the zoning change.
Mr. Venturi and his Marietta Land Use/Zoning attorney Mr. Garvis Sams gave assurances that many types of undesireable businesses would NOT be built on this property. The assurances were both written and oral and were in great detail incorporated into the minutes of the meeting.
The area residents were pleased that both Mr. Venturi, lawyer Sams and the City Council were in agreement that a long list of disagreeable business types would be prohibited from using that property.
One of the major concerns was that there would be no 'Pawn Shops' and this is specifically addressed in the meeting and the written assurances given.
From Page 9 of the 2004 Council minutes: ". . . Mr. Venturi has agreed to eliminate as a part of the otherwise permitted uses: . . . Overnight travel trailer parks, pawn shops, private parks, recreation grounds, rooming houses and boarding houses . . ."
The property is now called 'Mack Dobbs Point' owned by Mack Dobbs Properties LLC, 630 Willeo Rd, Roswell 30075, (ie: Celestino Venturi) and in the fall of 2006 a 24,600 sq ft building with 16 store fronts was put up and opened for tenants in 2007. It was recently on the market for 3,350,000 with Cassidy Turley Commercial Real Estate Services. Unfortunately in a Sept 19, 2011 City Council meeting, approval was given for a Pawn and Precious Metal License to be operated in this strip mall at 2953 North Cobb Parkway. The motion carried 5-0 and is now doing business at this site and in fact various City personnel attended the ribbon cutting and it was promoted on the City of Kennesaw web site. Despite the fancy title, the business advertises itself both on the site and in advertising as a 'Pawn Shop'.
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Just in case anyone wondered (I did) if the purpose of the business was stated as Pawn Shop, I took some time out to review the 20+ pages of documents on file with the Kennesaw City Clerk. Cruchelow Jewelry and Loan was mentioned many times, but as you can see here, 'Pawn Shop' did get one mention on the 'Application For Occupational Tax Certificate', if you weren't paying attention you might easily miss it, but it was there one time.
