A Buford real estate developer is requesting that the city of Carrollton annex 14 acres on which he intends to build a large apartment complex, but on Monday the development hit a snag when the City Council voted to table the request until after a market study can be performed.

Marty Orr of Prime Interest Inc. in Buford approached the city late last year with plans for a 225-unit apartment complex targeting students of the University of West Georgia. The plans indicate the complex would be directly across from the university’s football stadium on Lovvorn Road, with the street address of the property at 1321 and 1345 Lovvorn Road. At 225 units, the facility would offer space for slightly more than 500 beds in seven buildings, accompanied by a pool, an athletic field and 1,200 square feet of retail space.

At a time when most builders are hunkering down and waiting for the housing market to bounce back, it’s atypical to see a developer taking the initiative to unveil such a large complex, said Carrollton Assistant City Manger Tim Grizzard.

“It’s certainly the only one we’ve heard from, and it’s certainly unusual during this economy,” Grizzard said.

At Monday’s meeting of the City Council, Doug Crawford of Crawford Group-Georgia & West, and Orr’s representative at the meeting, discussed the potential changes to the roads in that area that will be needed to accommodate the influx of traffic both from the complex and the stadium itself. He said eventually that stretch on Lovvorn Road will need to be widened to three lanes, as it will at some time in the future likely see upwards of 20,000 cars a day. Each major property on the road will need to have a turn lane that also functions as a deceleration and acceleration lane.

At the same time, Crawford said, the intersections where Lovvorn Road meets Brumbelow and Hullet Church roads will need to be modified to meet the growing traffic demands, coming at a cost of between $250,000 and $300,000 per intersection.

Ideally, these improvements should be paid for in part by future developers, said Mike Patterson, the newest member of the council who took the oath of office on Monday. Yet, he said, it remains to be seen what role the city will play in developing the area around the stadium, and it’s important to move slowly when dealing with major projects. For that reason, Patterson motioned to table the developer’s joint requests for annexation and rezoning from county to planned development. His motion passed unanimously.

As part of the move to table the council’s decision, Patterson also requested that the developer complete a market study on the potential future use of the property, ensuring that the complex will get consistent use if it’s given the OK to move forward.

“I just don’t want anyone to come out there directly across the street from the stadium and take off on a project and it not succeed and fill up,” Patterson said. “I wanted to table it long enough to suggest it to them. With the market conditions we’re in right now, nobody is in a big rush to do stuff, and it’s just all and well to take it one step at a time.”

The city cannot formally mandate that a developer perform a market study, but it can be strongly encouraged.

While it’s no secret that the housing market is a shell of what it was during its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Patterson said, student housing represents a separate situation altogether and is not as uniformly affected by the housing slump as other residential developments.

“This is a special project. This is student housing, and although there’s some overflow into the residential rental market with every housing complex, the student housing market is a little bit of a different animal,” Patterson said. “If the students are at the university, the demand is going to be there, so you really can’t assess it as part of the housing market itself, but it still needs to be looked at closely.”

In October of last year, the Carrollton Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the annexation and rezoning, though the approval was accompanied by a dozen conditions. Among other things, the conditions mandated that the complex be capped at 225 multi-family units and provide 24-hour on-site management. There were a number of conditions specifically addressing the retail space on the property, requiring that storefront designs vary “to avoid monotonous building facades” and that the space not contain a 24-hour restaurant nor any business that serves alcohol or pornography.

The annexation and rezoning request will come before the council again at its meeting on March 1.