A Big Box can Bring Taxes and Jobs, says Developer

An official at Selig Enterprises told the Banner Herald yesterday that a proposed commercial center on the edge of downtown will bring jobs and taxes to Athens.

Jo Ann Chitty, who directed the UGA Real Estate Foundation, believes the project will improve the economic landscape in Athens. She said the company even wants to keep Jittery Joe’s.

Bob Googe, who owns Jittery Joe’s with partner Michael Ripps, said that Ripps met with Selig officials a week or so ago. There, he learned they envisioned the coffee roasting operation, currently in a 6,000 square foot former waterhouse, squeezing into 1,000 square feet of a “cookie cutter building” next to an L.A. Fitness Center.

“That is so against everything Jittery Joe’s stands for,” he said.

By Thursday night, Athenians had started to express their feelings about Wal Mart possibly filling the big box component of the Selig project.

Russell Edwards headed a meet-up at to talk about it. A petiton circulating on line has close to 7,000 signatures. And a “phone in” is scheduled for today between 10 and 11 a.m.

Do you think having a sales and property tax generating Wal Mart downtown balances out having a Big Box store downtown? Tell us in the comments.