Smyrna Downtown Redevelopment Keeps Church Move, Parking Shift
Smyrna’s downtown redevelopment remains an active city project, with the biggest confirmed changes involving the former First Baptist Church campus on Church Street, a planned church relocation to Atlanta Road and a revised plan for downtown parking.
The City of Smyrna says its Downtown Development Authority reached an agreement with Smyrna First Baptist Church in March 2024. Under that agreement, the authority purchased the church’s existing campus on Church Street. The church was to purchase authority-owned property on Atlanta Road and relocate there.
The arrangement puts two centrally located properties into a broader redevelopment plan. It also means the future use of the Church Street campus depends in part on the church’s relocation and the city’s implementation of the property agreement.
Parking plan changed from deck to surface lot
Smyrna’s current project information says a parking deck once planned between the Smyrna Community Center and the Smyrna Police Department has been replaced by a surface parking lot.
The city describes the surface-lot plan as providing additional downtown parking spaces. However, the available project information does not provide a current final space count. That means residents cannot yet use the public summary to compare the parking capacity of the revised plan with the capacity that would have been provided by the earlier deck proposal.
The change is significant because the project area sits among major civic facilities. The community center, police department and the properties connected to the church agreement are all part of Smyrna’s downtown core. A change from a structured parking facility to a surface lot will affect the planned use of that property and the way parking is arranged around those public buildings.
Project remains in progress
Smyrna continues to list Downtown Redevelopment as an active city project in its 2026 project information. That confirms the initiative remains on the city’s project list, but it does not establish that construction is complete.
The city’s project summary does not state that Smyrna First Baptist Church has already moved to Atlanta Road. It also does not provide a church-relocation date, a construction-completion date, a date for opening the surface lot or a current project cost.
Those missing details are important for people who use downtown facilities and for residents following changes to the civic core. A relocation date would indicate when the Church Street campus is expected to change uses. A construction schedule would help show when work or access changes could occur. A final parking count would provide a clearer measure of how the revised plan changes downtown parking.
What comes next
The next known step is a more detailed city update on implementation. That update would need to clarify the timing of construction, the church’s relocation and the surface parking lot.
The city’s meeting and event calendar was active during the August 2026 search period, but the available calendar information did not provide a newer substantive redevelopment decision. No later city action or construction update in the source material supersedes the project summary.
For now, the confirmed development is an ongoing redevelopment program rather than a completed project. Smyrna has identified the properties involved, documented the March 2024 church-property agreement and changed the parking concept from a proposed deck to a surface lot. The schedule, final parking capacity and ultimate timing of the church move remain unspecified in the available public information.
Sources
- City Projects, City of Smyrna, Georgia
- Calendar Meeting List, City of Smyrna, Georgia
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