After five years of planning, an undeveloped area near Avondale Estates city center will soon be transformed into a new park and event pavilion.
The city’s Urban Redevelopment Agency, which consists of City Commission members, voted last week to hire construction company Reeves Young, LLC to build its Town Green project. During the meeting, city leaders were ecstatic that the project is beginning to come to fruition.
“I think this was the topic maybe at the very first meeting I was a part of in January of 2016,” Mayor Pro Tem Brian Fisher said. “And to finally get to this point is very humbling and it makes me proud.”
Dubbed the “biggest public project in the city’s history” by City Manager Patrick Bryant, Town Green will take up five acres of city-owned land along North Avondale Road. City leaders initially included a mixed-use retail and residential building as part of the plans, but Bryant said in February that those aspects aren’t feasible at this time.
The city agreed to pay Reeves Young, based in Sugar Hill, up to $5.7 million for the initial construction, which includes the small park, a new street, the pavilion and the needed stormwater infrastructure. Bryant added that they’ve already built in $115,000 in contingency costs into that budget, so it’s unlikely the city will need to pay more to complete this phase.
The city previously hired Fabric Developers, LLC to develop and design the project, which included input from residents. The city held multiple online surveys, livestreamed meetings and Q&A sessions before settling on a final plan.
A date for construction to begin was not provided, but the construction company will have 270 days to finish the work after ground is broken, the contract says.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ajc/P7DYBH6TO7FEKG4SUXQQKADRXE.jpg)
