Growth is up along Cleveland Highway

Published 10:24 pm Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Local and national investors continue to show confidence in the Cleveland Highway corridor and north Whitfield County.

“Basically, it’s been a combination of things that have caused the growth,” Varnell Mayor Lindsey Metcalf said. It is a mix likely to sustain continued development longterm, he said.

Available land ready for development, population growth, the extension of public utilities and a four-lane route all combine to make the Cleveland Highway corridor attractive for more residential and commercial growth, observers said.

“This north end of town is really where we see a lot of opportunity,” said Mike Kolff, who opened a 16,000-square-foot Ace Hardware store in May 2007 near the intersection of Cleveland Highway and Ga. Highway 2. “We kind of looked in the North Georgia area and this area looked the most promising.”

A strategy of Ace is for its local owners to open near residential areas, he said.

“Where we are people have to pass us to get to the competition,” Kolff said.

The intersection of Cleveland Highway and Ga. Highway 2 has seen development on three of its four corners in recent years. Two of the most recent additions there are an Ace Hardware store and a branch of Dalton-Whitfield Bank.

At the intersection of Cleveland Highway and Beaverdale Road, a CVS pharmacy is under construction. Just south of there a Fred’s Super Dollar Store is being built on the east side of Cleveland Highway.

Entrepreneurs have filled in many spots in between.

National retailers have followed the people up Cleveland Highway, chasing the growing population in north Whitfield County. Some of the homegrown businesses along the route are owned by those who moved to the area and liked the idea of working closer to home.

“My wife and I moved up to the Cohutta, Varnell area,” Alan Pippin, owner of Pippin Insurance Agency said. “I was driving down Cleveland Highway every day to go to work on Walnut Avenue. Then this house came up for sale.”

Pippin has been at 3174 Cleveland Highway since October 2005. He said he has since purchased a vacant lot next door, which could be used to for expansion of his own business or for someone else to develop.

So, now not only does Pippin get to work closer to home, he said his current location serves the growing north Whitfield market. And, his previous customers, used to the Dalton location have stayed with the firm.

“We thought we would have some resistance to people with a phobia about Cleveland Highway,” Pippin said. “I used to think it was far out, but it doesn’t seem that way to me anymore. It’s viewed now as just another part of Dalton.”

The lawyers in the firm of Goddard, Thames and Hammontree, moved their practice to 2716 Cleveland Highway from downtown Dalton in 2001.

“I’d love to say we had the pulse that the growth was going to come out this way, but that’s not what happened” partner Allen Hammontree said. “In Dalton we had trouble finding something that fit the size and price range we needed.”

They found a house along Cleveland Highway that fit their needs, so they bought it, he said.

“Our practice is such that we don’t have to go to the courthouse every day,” Hammontree said. “We all live out this way anyway and it made sense.”

The firm handles mostly Social Security disability claims, personal injury and family law cases. Clients have not complained about the move away from downtown, he said.

“I think people like the idea that it’s easier to park and to find us, because there are some identifiable landmarks nearby,” Hammontree said.

Also making the north end of the county attractive for growth has been the extension of Optilink services there, Dalton Utilities spokeswoman Lori McDaniel said. Optilink is the utility’s phone, Internet and cable television service.

Pippin said another Dalton Utilities product is likely to keep the Cleveland Highway corridor an economic hotspot.

“I think we will continue to see the growth. As the sewer continues to come north, we’re going to see this pastureland being developed,” he said.

Hammontree said he likes north Whitfield and knows development could over time change the character that has made the area so attractive.

“It’s one of those things that you want to have your cake and eat it too,” he said. “(Development) is going to happen. It’s good that it’s happening in a positive way.”