A sale of most of Fort McPherson to filmmaker Tyler Perry could take place as soon as today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

The McPherson Implementing Local Redevelopment Authority has called a special meeting at 9 a.m., and it is believed that the final required votes on the deal will be taken there, a person with direct knowledge of the situation told the AJC.

The civilian authority tasked with redeveloping the shuttered Army post is racing to close on a complicated transaction to acquire the 488-acre complex from the military and simultaneously transfer 330 acres of the property to Perry.

Perry and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed came to an agreement about a year ago for the filmmaker and star of the Madea films to acquire most of the post for $30 million to build a new movie studio. About 144 acres of the post is slated for redevelopment, and the Veterans Administration controls some land for medical facilities.

Authority officials declined to comment ahead of the meeting.

The sale to Perry, a deal that has split many in the neighborhoods south of downtown, concludes a year of prolonged negotiations that at times were nearly derailed. The deal now brings the post, founded in 1885 and closed in 2011, under civilian control.

But communities around the sprawling compound have been fearful that the new movie studio will stand as a slightly smaller walled-off fortress dividing neighborhoods as it did under the Army.

The AJC will attend Friday’s authority board meeting. Read more about this developing story online at MyAJC.com or in Saturday’s print edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

» TIMELINE: View key dates and events in the proposed sale of Fort McPherson