Traffic cones, orange barrels, and heavy machinery have become as much a part of the downtown Cornelia scenery as the Big Red Apple. Construction on the downtown streetscape has been underway in phases since 2002. The latest phase of the new sidewalk project was basically done this week. Then leaders found one more thing they needed to fix.
“The sidewalks on the north side of Main Street are almost complete,” explains City Manager Donald Anderson, “with the exception of staining the beauty strip and the ramp on Chattahoochee Street.” The “beauty strip” is a portion of concrete painted red to match the brickwork installed in sidewalks in the heart of downtown. Anderson’s announcement would have signaled the end of the most recent phase of work except for one remaining problem area.
The Cornelia streetscape currently ends abruptly in front of the Rudeseal Furniture building at Main and Front Streets. The sidewalk here is nothing more than a thin and crumbling layer of concrete. “This stretch is in really bad shape,” Anderson says. “It needs to be replaced and we need to do it before the paving project this summer.” The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) plans to spend more than $1 million paving 3.45 miles of Main Street from downtown to just north of Vision Drive. The construction is currently scheduled to begin in late summer or early fall.
Getting the new sidewalk built in front of the Rudeseal building before GDOT rolls in will cost $26,720. City Council members voted to tack it on as a “change order” to the existing contract for the N. Main sidewalk project. That means crews can start right away. Anderson says a planned $356,078 replacement of sewer lines under Main Street is also on the fast track and slated to begin in the coming weeks.
With all this in the works, the summer of 2015 will again find downtown Cornelia filled with traffic cones, detours and heavy equipment, but Anderson says it will likely be the last disruption here for a while, “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.”
