GILLSVILLE — Gillsville's downtown area on Ga. Highway 52 has been getting a bit of a facelift this year, and the mayor of the small town in east Hall County said this past week it shouldn't be too much longer before the project is finished.
The streetscape for the historic downtown includes new bricked sidewalks and handicapped access. New lighting also is expected as part of the project.
Mayor Larry Poole said the total cost for the project will be a quarter of a million dollars.
"It's a huge expense for a town like Gillsville," commented Poole during a recent meeting of the Joint Municipal Association (JMA) at the Gillsville Community Center. "We couldn't have done it without the grant."
The TE - or Transportation Enhancement - grant comes from state transportation officials. Some federal funding also makes up the grant allocation. Poole said the grant is an 80-20 matching grant.
Gillsville's population is only 245, so the $250,000 price tag for the project wasn't something city leaders took lightly. They wanted to make sure their small town reaped the benefits of the streetscape plan.
"Basically, we just took out some of the old infrastructure," said Poole. "We had a sidewalk that was unsafe, where you had to go up steps and it had angles and everything, so we pretty much just tore that out and went in and created a plaza effect where we have brick pavers and handicapped access, some new lighting."
While the plans for the streetscape got underway about five years ago, the actual construction began at the first of this year. Poole said it will be another month before the project is complete.
