PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Fourteen single-family home permits were issued in the month of January, averaging 2,578 square feet each and thirteen townhome permits were issued averaging 2,133 square feet each. Several of the new townhome permits were for a model home building in the new Northmark subdivision. A permit was issued for the 8,000 square foot Unona warehouse off Brogdon Road.
In the month of January, 214 building inspections were completed; a decrease from the 265 performed the previous January. A total of 243 zoning and property maintenance code inspections were carried out this January, twenty less than that in January of 2019.
PARKS AND RECREATION
Parks. Regular maintenance occurred throughout Gary Pirkle Park. All In Futbol Club and i9 Sports leagues continue practice and play on the fields. North Gwinnett and Lanier High School soccer teams began practice at the park. Security enhancements were installed at the community garden to include additional lighting and a security camera.
Downtown and City Hall. Weekly maintenance occurred through the downtown area. Testing and repair work were carried out at the Splash Pad to include work to the lighting and programming systems.
E Center. Gym memberships now exceed 9,500 with a variety of different activities and health-focused classes offered. Repairs and punch list items continue to be addressed throughout the center. Several private events occurred during the month of January.
Golf. Despite the colder, wet weather during the month of January, the course still had a successful month. Greens maintenance continued with appropriate applications for the winter months. Staff attended national golf superintendent conferences to acquire new and improved ways to maintain the course and equipment. The next Sugar Hill Golf Association tournament is scheduled for the 15th of February.
EVENTS
During the month of January, six movies were featured at The Eagle Theatre. February brought the final weekend of the Players Guild’s radio show and another series of movies.
The city’s inaugural Broad Street Film Festival is scheduled for the 21st and 22nd of February.
Staff is working to finalize the 2020 event season and plans to release the entire calendar of events within the next couple of weeks.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Tree City. The National Arbor Day Foundation recently recognized Sugar Hill as a Tree City. Sugar Hill joins the ranks of more than 3,400 cities across America dedicated to care and preservation of green space and healthy trees.
Visionary City Award. Sugar Hill received the inaugural Visionary City Award at the annual Cities United Summit this past month. Presented by the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia Trend Magazine, this award recognizes outstanding communities that have created positive change through effective civic engagement and collaboration.
Orangetheory Fitness. The newest E Center business on West Broad Street opened in early January. Orangetheory Fitness brings expanded fitness classes to downtown Sugar Hill as well as a state-of-the-art studio and skilled trainers.
Winter Community Clean-up
The first community clean-up day of 2020 is just a few weeks away. Join us on Saturday, February 29th from 10:00-11:30 am.
Cemetery Clean-up
In January, representatives from the Sugar Hill Historic Preservation Society, Sugar Hill Youth Ambassadors, City Council, private sector (Site One Landscaping) and general public braved frigid temperatures to lend their time and labor to make improvements in the cemetery. A heartfelt thank you to all who assisted with the service day in the Historic Sugar Hill Cemetery.
PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES
Gas Department. Nineteen (19) transmitters were added to the 4,000 gas accounts having automated meter-reading capabilities since the replacement program began in late 2017. Staff also completed utility-locate services on nearly 450 sites for the month and worked with our construction contractors in various sites around the city to protect our underground utilities. The staff has been working through regulatory compliance tasks, new service installations, and 87 other service requests to round out the workload last month.
Street & Stormwater Department. Drainage inspections, drain clearing as well as lawn, leaf and yard debris removal have been the focus during these warmer and wetter winter months. Over seventy-three (73) loads of bagged yard debris were collected during the month. Staff has been working through tree trimming in the rights-of-way of Hillcrest, Links View Drive and on West Broad Street as well. Our stormwater staff completed emergency repairs and clearing activity during the early days of the year, responding to multiple street flooding issues during the heavy rains. In addition, staff cleared out curbs, gutters, drains and inlets prior to ongoing storm events.
CONSTRUCTION UPDATES
E Center. The facility is holding at 86% of the spaces leased with negotiations ongoing with two prospective restaurant tenants. Orangetheory Fitness Studio wrapped up its buildout in January and Red Clay Interactive, the marketing firm relocating from Buford, is just getting underway. New South Construction continues to focus on a handful of stubborn warranty items including the water feature pool waterproofing (temperature/weather dependent), theatre handrail staining, and HVAC controls. Roof repairs appear to have held up during recent rain events and have addressed concerns with blistering that formed in a number of places. These are all being addressed by New South and their construction team as materials and labor resources align with schedules and weather conditions.
Sidewalks Projects – Whitehead and Suwanee Dam Roads. The sidewalks on Whitehead Road are substantially complete with minor punch work required to closeout this portion of the scope of work. One segment northeast of Sugar Ridge is being deferred to a later project, allowing the county a chance to repair a stormwater culvert northeast of Sugar Ridge Road. The Chattahoochee Group has shifted operations to Suwanee Dam Road and has completed about half of the scope in this phase, connecting the two neighborhoods of Barrington Estates and tying-in Laurel Springs. The segments between the fire station and the Links subdivision is next on the schedule. The project is expected to wrap up with three or four more weeks of cooperative weather.
Sugar Hill Greenway. The main segment of the greenway has cleared a hurdle with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) involving Gwinnett’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) by way of an encroachment agreement with the county. The easement encroachment agreement will allow the trail and DWR sewer line to follow similar and intersecting alignments in the area between Whitehead and Level Creek Roads. The alignment in this area is also the location of a permit from GDOT to allow its construction across unused right-of-way and will connect Whitehead Road with the city’s new Gold Mine Park. The next segment ready for construction will be along Peachtree Industrial Boulevard from E.E. Robinson Park to the county’s new park, completing a continuous segment of just less than a mile and has been advertised for bids. Bids are due later in February.
Veterans Memorial Relocation. Surfaces Group, the city’s general contractor, is aiming to cross the finish line on the project in February, having wrestled with its granite and sign supplier as well as electrical and plumbing subcontractors to attend to a number of matters. Surfaces Group spent much of January waiting on several granite panels, which had to be prepared and cut before they were delivered and placed, notably on the curved portion of the water feature.
2019 Bowl Improvements. With much of the structure of the concession building in place, the electrical conduit, junction boxes and panels are now being installed as weather permits. During January, the contractor was able to install the concrete edging around the building. Artificial turf installation is complete pending installation of the logo section of turf in the middle of section B, row 5. The project currently includes customer-focused improvements, such as lighting, sound, and visual enhancements centered on concessions space and finishes. The contractor anticipates reaching substantial completion in April, with the concert series expected to kick-off in early May.
Gary Pirkle Park Field Improvements. The lighting and turf suppliers have provided design input and our design team has finished the construction documents and submitted them for local permitting. The scope of work will include excavating for drainage improvements before a synthetic turf field is installed for the area. The bid phase is right around the corner and expected to be advertised in February. The proposed synthetic turf solution will be weather-resilient, providing three field sizes and four different configurations as options.
Art/History Room Buildout – Broadstone Project. The design contract has been awarded and is expected to kick-off this month with construction anticipated later this summer. The project is a part of the proposed 2020 budget.
