Council rejects all variance requests on property proposed for a Sprouts grocery in Loganville

Jim Thompson – the Walton Tribune

LOGANVILLE, GA (Aug. 24, 2026) – Despite recommendations from the Loganville Planning Commission that Nashville, Tenn.-based real estate development company GBT Realty be allowed numerous variances from the city’s zoning ordinance to build a 23,273-square-foot Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store and an additional 8,800 square feet of attached commercial space on 3.61 acres at Brand Road and Oak Grove Road near U.S. Highway 78 on the Gwinnett County side of the city, the Loganille City Council voted unanimously at the August City Council meeting to deny those requested variances.

The rejections came despite some general council support for bringing the specialty grocery chain — which features fresh, natural and organic foods ar- ranged in a farmstand-style layout – into the city as an alternative to more traditional grocery stores.

But in the end, Councilwoman Patti Wolfe said in brief comments after the council meeting, the volume of the requested variances needed to put the grocery store on the relatively small tract outweighed the attractiveness of having a Sprouts Farmers Market in Loganville.

The variances requested by GBT Realty included the removal or reduction of require landscape buffers, encroachment into a required natural buffer along Big Flat Creek, an associated abandonment of a non-impervious setback beyond that buffer, and a reduction in the required length of parking spaces from 19 feet to 18 feet.

Immediately prior to the council’s Thursday vote, Henry Bailey, an Atlanta real estate attorney representing the project, told the council that after hearing their concerns about the proposed variances at their non-voting Monday work session, the people behind the proposed project wanted a chance to tweak the plan before any final council decision.

“We want to put in some work … to try to make it a plan that works for everybody,” he said.

From that point, Councilwoman Lisa Newberry, a supporter of having a Sprouts Farmers Market in Loganville and chair of the council’s Planning & Development Committee, moved quickly into a set of motions to deny the variance requests, which the council just as quickly supported.

Sprouts Farmers Markets currently operates 500 stores in 25 states. The chain currently lists 17 stores in Georgia, including one in nearby Lawrenceville.