Merchants in downtown Cornelia have more road work to look forward to in the coming months.
Cornelia City Council members are moving forward with a plan to spend $356,078 replacing sewer infrastructure along Main Street. They expect to begin right away and finish by the end of July. The work is time-sensitive because the construction needs to be complete before the Georgia Department of Transportation comes in to resurface the road.
The DOT plans to spend more than $1 million on 3.45 miles of Main Street from downtown to just north of Vision Drive. According to State Representative Terry Rogers (R – Clarkesville), the repaving project was in jeopardy until the legislature passed the new excise tax on gasoline. After funding was assured, the DOT put the project back on the schedule for late summer or early fall.
A number of construction projects over the past few years have seen sidewalks replaced and other disruptions in the day-to-day routine in Cornelia. City Manager Donald Anderson says the upcoming sewer and road projects are the last of the work for now, “I promise to all our downtown merchants, when we’re done with this – we’re done. There’s nothing else to be done in downtown for a long time. Just bear with us for a few more months.”
