Renovations for the Lake Lanier Olympic Park are well under way as phase I of the master plan was recently completed ahead of the 2016 Canoe/Kayak Pan American Championships this summer.
“The Gainesville Hall County 96 Roundtable, Inc. (the governing body for the Lake Lanier Olympic Park) is seeking a grant from the state of Georgia to implement a phase II of their project out there at the park,” Gainesville City Manager Brian Lackey said today at the Gainesville City Council work session.
Before phase II can begin, however, an environmental assessment of the land needs to be completed and reviewed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
At today’s work session, funding to the tune of $11,375 was placed on the consent agenda for Tuesday's council meeting.
The funding will cover half of the environmental assessment and half of the administrative fee to the Corps of Engineers. The other half will be paid for by Hall County, which was approved last week.
Phase I of the master plan consisted of improvements to the tower side of the park which included two new accessibility ramps in accordance to the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), an expansion of the service building and a new ADA accessible restroom inside the Olympic Timing Tower.
Phase II will take place on the park side, most of which is Corps-owned property, and will include cleaning up walking trails on the campus, converting an existing storage unit into an outdoor pavilion and constructing two new pavilions which will have outdoor fireplaces that can be rented out by the public for events.
The third and final phase of the plan will include improvements to the main boathouse.
