MARIETTA - The City Council on Wednesday voted to purchase what has been described as the shabbiest apartment complex in the most blighted part of town.

Council plans to raze the 200-unit Preston Chase apartment complex on Franklin Road near Delk Road, and turn the 13.19-acre site into a public park.

The motion was made by Councilman Jim King, with council voting 6-1 to buy the property from Regions Bank for $2.7 million.

Councilman Anthony Coleman cast the dissenting vote without explaining his reason for opposing.

City Manager Bill Bruton said the purchase price amounts to $13,500 per apartment unit or $204,700 per acre.

The occupancy rate of Preston Chase is about 50 percent. The plan is to use the Marietta Housing Authority to manage the property over the next year or so in helping tenants locate elsewhere before the city can build a park there, Mayor Steve Tumlin said.

The city's purchase is expected to close Feb. 24, pending an environmental analysis, and will be funded by the $25 million parks bond voters approved in November.

Among those in attendance at Wednesday's meeting was Marietta Housing Authority board member Bill Hagemann, who also serves on the city's citizens parks committee. Hagemann applauded the council's decision.

"The price makes this an excellent real estate deal," he said. "I think a lot of people have had the goal of taking down apartments in the Franklin Road corridor, and also it's a great goal to have a park over there. I believe there's 3,000 units and no parks other than the facilities that are within the complexes, so I think it's a great move."

In fact, the Marietta Housing Authority was interested in tearing down a couple of the dozen or so Franklin Road apartment complexes on its own when it applied for a $20 million federal stimulus grant last year. But last month, the MHA received word that it didn't win that award. One of the apartment complexes the MHA intended to raze was Preston Chase. So it was with excitement that Hagemann learned that the city is using parks money to purchase and demolish that complex.

"That's the worst complex in Franklin Road, too, I believe," Hagemann said. "... That's going to do so much good for the area. That one there had so much deferred maintenance and the construction was very obsolete, so I feel good about getting those people in better housing as well. I don't think they can get in worse housing than being in Preston Chase. That was probably the bottom rung on the ladder over there."

Preston Chase is in the ward of Councilman Philip Goldstein.

The city's ultimate goal is to level the dilapidated apartment buildings on Franklin Road to allow space for Economic Development Director Beth Sessoms' proposal for a "Global GreenTech Corridor" in the 500-acre area, which would establish a mixed-use development. Officials say a motivating factor for eliminating the rundown apartment buildings is that they house a highly transient population that serves as a drain on the Marietta City Schools system. Marietta school board Chairman Randy Weiner said there are 1,143 children who live on Franklin Road who are enrolled in the Marietta school system.

Tumlin said he can't name many apartment buildings, but the few that come to mind are on Franklin Road, seared into his memory from all the code enforcement and crime problems that occur there. Demolishing a problem apartment complex while at the same time giving the children an area to play in is a win for everyone, he said.

"We want to raise the quality of life for people out there," Tumlin said.

Another benefit to the property is that it is adjacent to green space the city already owns, and it is along a proposed multi-use trail that would connect Kennesaw Mountain with the Chattahoochee River, Bruton said.

Demolishing the 18 two-story apartment buildings in the Preston Chase complex is estimated at a cost of $300,000 to $400,000, Bruton said.

The city is buying the apartment complex from Regions Bank, which foreclosed on the property for $7.5 million. Although the Cobb Board of Tax Assessor's lists the property at a value of $8.2 million, an Oct. 2009 appraisal by Regions Bank lists the value at only $3 million. But even at the bank's appraised value, the city ends up saving $300,000 by paying the $2.7 million cost.