All of the pieces are now coming together for Gainesville's Historic Green Street to get a complete facelift.

 

Gainesville City Council members learned at their meeting Tuesday night that the Georgia Department of Transportation had agreed to finance the third and final part of the improvement project. Mayor Danny Dunagan said he received notification from GDOT Commissioner Russell McMurry that the city had received a project number and a timeline for the corridor portion of the improvement project.

 

"That's great news," Dunagan said. "Sometime around 2025 is when the construction will begin, 2023 I think is when the right-of-way acquisition [will start]. The City of Gainesville will be responsible for the engineering and the DOT will take over from there."

 

In a follow-up interview, City Manager Bryan Lackey said the city and GDOT had been involved in a number of recent conversations about Green Street.

 

"This has been done in phases. About a year ago we got [project] numbers assigned to the...intersection/roundabouts at each end of the Historic Green Street corridor," Lackey said, noting that GDOT needed some time to assess what needed to be done with the corridor itself. "It's a state route, so it's their asset. They understand that there's some attention that needs to happen to their asset - not just the road, but the sidewalks, curbs, etc. through there."

 

Lackey said the City of Gainesville will cover about 95% of the design cost for the corridor portion of the project, an estimated $800,000. The state will finance the actual construction. Lackey said the financing arrangement is similar to what's happening with the reconstruction of the Jesse Jewell/Queen City/John Morrow Parkway intersection project.

 

"We knew we were moving toward this a couple of years ago...so we're ready to go. We don't have to go find that money. We have the money in place," Lackey said. 

 

The total project cost for the two intersections and the corridor has been placed at $17.775 million.

 

Lackey said based on the allocation of the funding, engineering work could begin as soon as this July.

 

Follow these links to previous stories about the Green Street improvement project:

Gainesville council members okay funding for traffic study 

Officials: Phase I of Green Street study complete

What's with all the cameras on Green Street?

Gainesville City Council members get first look at Green Street concept plan