CUMMING, Ga. — It’s been more than nine months since ground was broken near downtown Cumming for the multi-million dollar City Center. The area, which sits between Canton Road and Forsyth Central High School, has seen plenty of changes, but there’s still no sign of any buildings. According to Phil Higgins, the city administrator, that will soon change.
“We’re excited and can't wait to go vertical with some buildings,” he said. “When you just see earthwork going on, you really don't get a lot of excitement about that as much as you do when you see building start being erected and steel going up.”
You may not be able to tell by looking, but a lot of work has already taken place to make sure the land is ready for all the construction, Higgins said.
“We had to do a lot of work that’s sewer related - running some sewer lines not only for this development, but it's going to help the other infrastructure and the city also,” he said. “The earthwork we've done, just getting it where we could survey it and do all the site work, we've done a lot of work over there so far. A lot of people may not see it yet, because nothing is going up, but that day is coming soon.”
Higgins said COVID-19 has forced some changes like meeting with the architects via Skype or Zoom instead of in person. But, he said, it has not caused any major delays.
“We've had some setbacks due to weather more than anything else,” Higgins said. “But we’re really not that far off track. We think we're going to make up time as the summer goes on and get right back on the targeted date.”
That targeted date is August of 2021, he said, but the buildings should start going up in the next two months.
“We hope to be going vertical with some buildings in July of this year. As long as we keep on the track that we’re on right now, we should be able to hit that August 2021 date,” Higgins said. “Right now, we are still in the earthwork. We're getting it ready to go vertical with a parking deck and go vertical with the outparcel buildings. That will be the first to go up.”
Once complete, the new parking area will be utilized by students and staff at Forsyth Central High School – assuming they reenter the building this fall.
“Hopefully school starts in August, and there will be kids using that parking lot,” Higgins said.
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