Cornelia’s Fire and Planning Departments will temporarily move to the city’s North Fire Station. City Commission meetings will move to the Community House.
The City of Cornelia broke ground on its new $8.9M dollar municipal complex this week. Construction on the new two-building complex on South Main Street will soon begin. It’s expected to take 12 months to complete. Once it is complete, the facility will house Cornelia City Hall, and the city’s police and fire departments.
The fire station at 156 Foreacre Street and the adjacent City Hall Annex will have to be demolished in order to construct the new City Hall and police station. The demolition will begin in April, and Georgia Power will be disconnecting the power to the buildings on April 3, according to city officials.
In preparation, the city today announced several operational changes.
Who’s moving when and where?
On March 25, the Cornelia Fire Department will relocate all of its operations to the North Fire Station in the Big Lots shopping center at 347 US 441 North. It will remain there until the new fire station is complete.
On April 1, Cornelia’s Planning Department will also relocate to the North Fire Station. It will remain there until the new City Hall is complete.
The Cornelia City Commission will hold its last meeting in the existing courtroom on April 2. Beginning in May, the City Commission will hold its monthly meetings in the Community House located at 601 Wyly Street.
City Hall employees and police will remain in their current offices until the new complex is built. Once that happens and they move into their new office space, the existing City Hall and police station will be torn down for parking.
Overall projected cost and impact
In addition to construction costs, the city expects to spend around $2.6M on furnishings, equipment, engineering and architectural fees. The total cost of the project is expected to come in around $11.5 million.
City officials maintain it is money well spent.
Cornelia City Manager Dee Anderson says the new buildings will be better equipped to serve the needs of the public. He says the buildings are specifically designed for the purposes they’ll serve, unlike the buildings where departments are now housed. City Hall used to be the library, the police station was the health department, and the fire station was City Hall.
Not only will the buildings be more functional, they’ll also be more aesthetically pleasing.
“The public can expect a building that will have the appearance of being built in the late 1800’s like the rest of our downtown,” says Anderson. “We feel that this project will greatly enhance our downtown and hopefully spearhead new development in downtown.”
Cornelia is building the municipal complex with an eye to the future. The buildings are designed to accommodate growth for the next fifty years. That means there will be some empty office space at first, Anderson says. But for now, the focus is on getting started and seeing the project through to next year. “We ask that the citizens bear with us over the next 12 months as the buildings are being constructed.”
