By Natalie Simms
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If Bartow County officials have their way, construction would begin later this year on a road connecting Old Allatoona Road and Red Top Mountain Road to continue moving development forward at the LakePoint Sports Community. But since the project is headed by the Georgia Department of Transportation, the project has yet to receive the green light because of funding.
“From the (Bartow) county’s perspective, we expect the project to be funded and handed to us before the end of fiscal year 2016, which is the end of June, so we expect it to be funded by July 1st of this year,” says Steve Taylor, sole Bartow County Commissioner.
“We are very anxious to get the project moving but I’ve learned to not put a date on anything with the government.”
The proposed SR 293 Spur would connect Ga. 293 (Old Allatoona Road) to Red Top Mountain Road in Emerson. It’s needed to connect the current South Campus of LakePoint to the future North Campus of the complex. The two-lane roadway would cover 1.58 miles with an estimated $25 million price tag, according to the GDOT.
“This is a very much-needed project,” says Mohamed Arafa, communications officer with GDOT. “A traffic study conducted by LakePoint and Stantec (a consulting company) concluded that the LakePoint development in this area was expected to generate approximately 27,000 new weekday external trips, both to and from the site.
“An additional 15,500 trips were expected to generate within the site. Furthermore, 2,011 new external trips were expected to be generated during the weekday morning peak hour, and 2,180 new external trips during the evening peak hour. The proposed SR 293 Spur project is needed to handle this anticipated traffic demand of the LakePoint development, and to limit traffic on US 41 and I-75 within the development area.”
Taylor says the road “is huge. It is important because it keeps LakePoint moving and expanding. There is lots of activity right now off Old Allatoona Road and to keep that momentum going up toward Red Top Mountain is what we need,” he says.
According to the LakePoint Sporting Community’s website, the future north campus would include the Greg Norman Champions Golf Academy, Boomtown (large entertainment village), several multi-purpose fields, a track and field facility, soccer stadium, baseball stadium and Pennant Point that would include the Atlanta Braves Clubhouse Store.
“The north campus is three times the size of the south campus. That development is big for jobs, big for tourism,” says Taylor.
Arafa says provided the availability of funds, construction on the road could begin later this year.
“We still don’t know when funds will be available,” he says. “But once construction starts, a project of this magnitude usually takes 1 to 1.5 years to complete.”
Taylor says once funding is secured, the county would get to work on engineering and get the project out to bid.
“If we got the funding in the next few weeks, construction could start this year. But if we don’t get funding until this summer, it would be fall before we could begin engineering so construction would be later. It’s all in the hands of the D.O.T.,” he says.
“We are very excited to get it moving as soon as possible. I’m hoping that a year from now, we’ll see a road being built.”
As for LakePoint’s southern campus, things continue to boom there. The new Hampton Inn opens Friday; it will be the second motel in the area with more on the way. Fast food restaurants continue to open as well with Krystal due next. The part itself is home to eight baseball fields, Terminus Wake Park, Rally Volleyball and two others on the way — a massive indoor complex easily spotted from I-75 and also an advance game room/recreation area.
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