After more than 20 years of discussions, utility work and right-of-way acquisition, the Sardis Connector road project in northwest Hall County is now nearing the start of construction.
The Sardis Connector will be a four-lane divided highway that will span just over three and a half miles connecting Dawsonville Highway (Ga. 53) at Sardis Road to Thompson Bridge Road (Ga. 60) at Mount Vernon Road. Hall County District 2 Commissioner Billy Powell said the project is a long time coming.
"We first talked about this in 2004. That's when it was an idea that was generated. It was before I was a commissioner, I remember going to a meeting at the (Gainesville) Civic Center," Powell said. "Here we are, over 20 years later, we are finally getting started in construction."
Powell also said the project is an expensive one.
"The total cost, this is astronomical, is $84.3 million," Powell said. "That math is almost $22.8 million per mile. $28.3 million of that is what Hall County spent using SPLOST VI, VII and VIII...The (Georgia) DOT is actually going to pay $56 million for construction costs this time."
Powell said those figures include pre-construction, right-of-way acquisition costs and construction costs.
He said county officials recently participated in a pre-construction meeting with GDOT on January 31, and land clearing is set to begin later in March with a ribbon-cutting expected in mid-April. The current timeline from GDOT expects the project to be fully finished in September of 2028, but Powell said county officials expect to be able to open the roadway to the public in the fall of 2027.
The Sardis Connector was, at one point, included in preliminary discussions about a "Northern Arc" that would span from where the project ends at Thompson Bridge Road eastward to also connect with Cleveland Highway (U.S. 129) and possibly further. Powell said, as of the start of this project, there are no active plans to move forward with the Northern Arc.
"I think that when it was floated a few years ago, it was just overwhelmingly controversial," Powell said. "I think we need to really look at the feasibility of doing that. You know, if this one right here is not going across (Lake Lanier) and it's costing $22.8 million a mile, imagine what (the Northern Arc) would cost, and how could you ever generate enough money to pay for that?"
Powell said the cost issue could affect other road projects in Hall County in the immediate future because of the recent failure of a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax vote in November 2024.
"If that had passed, it would have paid for a lot of transformational projects like (the Sardis Connector) all across Hall County," Powell said.
