Happy New Year To Come With Projects Approaching Construction Phase
Friday, January 6th, 2023
When asked about his hopes for the City of Dalton in 2023, Mayor David Pennington was quick to respond.
“I’m hoping that we’ll make more headway on these projects that we’ve got than we did [last] year,” Pennington said. “That’s nobody’s fault, we’ve just been held up everywhere. That’s what my main thing is, we’ve got some pretty big important projects and we’ve struggled to move forward with some of them.”
The city’s leadership and staff have been working tirelessly on a number of projects over the past year, from large scale projects like building a new aquatics center or improving the Walnut Avenue gateway corridor to smaller projects such as creating new playgrounds in the parks or updating playing surfaces in the parks. While 2022 saw the completion of some long-term projects and new amenities for the city like the new Heritage Point Soccer Complex, other projects have been hampered by issues ranging from supply chain disruption and inflation to challenges acquiring land rights of way.
“Some of it’s just a case of getting the land, you know, getting some developers cooperating and all of that we’re struggling with,” Pennington said.
Despite those challenges, a number of projects are nearing the point of being shovel-ready in the early months of 2023, and city leaders are optimistic that the year to come will be a busy one in Dalton.
“(Former Public Works director) Benny Dunn used to have a saying that all of the easy stuff’s been done - from here on out everything is more complex, more complicated, and it takes longer to deliver,” Parker said. “I think about that saying a lot because it has a lot of truth to it. But we’ve got a team capable of executing it at the department head level and the leadership level and I think that 2023 is going to be a very exciting year for the city of Dalton.”
“We’ve already been able to do a lot of great things,” said City Councilmember Annalee Sams. “Just look at all of the soccer fields that have opened not just in the city but Whitfield County has also done a wonderful job with their parks. There are some great projects coming that will improve quality of life, and that’s about not just recreation but also fixing our infrastructure.”
Stormwater Infrastructure
One area where the city will be very active in 2023 will be delivering projects to improve Dalton’s stormwater management. In 2020, the City of Dalton engaged the Arcadis consulting firm to study the city’s flooding problems on both public and private property as well as roadways. The consultants used LIDAR technology to develop a complete computer model of the city and identified 30 projects that will reduce flooding concerns and improve stormwater flow. If each of them were to be implemented, the estimated cost would be $25 million. The city has allocated $10 million to be used to tackle the first 9 or 10 of those projects.
Caption: An example of a stormwater structure similar to a project that will be constructed inside the West Hill Cemetery near Evans Whitener Drive to help regulate stormwater flows in that area
“If you fail to maintain stormwater infrastructure and try to get ahead of it with regards to projects that mitigate flooding or improve stormwater flow you can have loss in property values, and you can have loss of local economy because for every hour or every day that a road is impassable the local economy can’t function in areas where we have these challenges,” Parker said.
“Our city is 175 years old and there’s a lot of infrastructure rehab that needs to happen in concert with all of our new projects,” said City Councilmember Annalee Sams. “We can’t ignore the infrastructure rehab that has to happen, and I’m excited to see us address stormwater in such a progressive way.”
Aquatics Center
Pre-construction work on the new aquatics center is finally close to being wrapped up. The city hopes that the acquisition of the 10 acre tract of land south of the Dalton Convention Center will be completed in the next month. From there, the design of the facility can be wrapped up.
“As soon as the property is in the possession of the city we will be in a position to finalize design and move forward with site work. That’s something I hope can begin by early summer if everything falls into place,” Parker said.
Parker noted that the scope of the project has not changed, with a 50-meter competition pool and also a separate multipurpose pool for therapeutic and recreational uses. The vision for the project is to create a facility where residents can swim and play and the community’s swim teams can compete and host larger competitions.
The Mill Line
Another project that has long been delayed by property acquisition and permitting is the Mill Line Trail project. It will connect Haig Mill Lake Park to downtown Dalton via a system of paved trails and new and existing sidewalks.
“We’re very close to being able to break ground (on the next phase),” Parker said. “Either at the end of this month or the first of February the council will be able to award that project to construction.”
Caption: A map showing plans for a new trail system connecting Haig Mill Lake Park to Chattanooga Road along Mill Creek
A contractor has submitted bids to construct the 1.1-mile section of trail along Mill Creek, paving the existing Eagle Walk Trail to create an eight-foot wide paved trail along the creek to the trail head off of Chattanooga Avenue. Construction is expected to take between 6-8 months. The city’s Public Works Department will build the sidewalk connection along Chattanooga Avenue from Crown Mill to the trail head. That project will also hopefully begin in 2023.
“The Mill Line plan was recommended by the Young Gamechangers program as well so several key stakeholders in the community will be meeting in the first part of 2023 to talk about taking some of the next steps on some of their recommendations,” Parker said. “One of them that has gained a tremendous amount of momentum and support is to look at continuing the improvements to sidewalks and look at potentially adding bike lanes from the Crown Mill area back to downtown to make that a safe and viable point of connectivity between the two.”
It Starts In The Parks
In addition to the aquatics center and the Mill Line, other reinvestments into the parks system in 2023 will include the reimagination and renovation of the John Davis Recreation Center. The project includes new locker rooms, concessions, and entry way for the outdoor pool and also a complete renovation of administrative offices and public meeting areas in the facility. Renovations of the basketball gym and other improvements to the facility are also planned. The project was part of the 2020 SPLOST.
“It’s a reinvestment in a key area of town that hasn’t seen a lot of new investment other than the Ron Nix soccer complex a few years ago,” Parker said. “So, we’re excited to get that project off of the ground.”
The City Council recently approved contracts to replace the artificial turf soccer fields at Lakeshore Park and the Ron Nix Soccer Complex. The city is also working on plans to replace and expand the turf fields at the Broaddus-Durkan soccer complex. The city has also submitted a grant proposal to replace the infields of the baseball fields at Heritage Point with turf to reduce the impact of rain on tournaments hosted by the city.
Caption: Crews worked in November 2022 to install new playground equipment at the Dalton Green Park
More new playgrounds are also coming in the new year. A new playground was recently installed at the Dalton Green and new ADA compliant playgrounds will soon be built at Civitan Park and Joan Lewis Park.
“Both of those are highly utilized parks in different parts of the city and we’re very excited about those new playgrounds,” Parker said. “Playground technology has really changed over the last couple of decades so the playgrounds are being replaced with really modern equipment that the kids can interact with and they are ADA compliant so all citizens can use those.”
Market Street
Momentum on the proposed streetscape improvements for Market Street slowed in 2022 with difficulties acquiring the necessary rights of way to complete planning for the project. The project is one of the first steps in the Gateway Corridor Improvement Plan to spruce up Dalton’s “front door” along Walnut Avenue. The first phase called for renovations to Market Street’s sidewalks, landscaping, and stormwater infrastructure similar to the project that remade downtown two decades ago. The second phase calls for the creation of a new roadway connecting Market Street to Dug Gap Road via Shields Road to improve traffic flow and connectivity.
Caption: A rendering of proposed streetscape improvements to Market Street
“That’s not something that’s being left behind but it is one where we’ve had some roadblocks with acquisition of the rights of way that we need. The plans are wrapped up on the first phase and we’ve got staff that’s working to secure those needed rights of way,” Parker said. “Assuming we get those, we’re in position to move that phase one project forward and then in the background we are wrapping up design of the phase two road segment.”
“That project, we have not talked much about it recently but it is a project that the staff has continued to work on to be in a position where once we do get the needed rights of way and easements we can move forward efficiently on that.”
Downtown Streetscape
The original master plan for the wildly successful streetscape renovations downtown included Cuyler Street and Pentz Street. The city submitted a grant proposal in late 2022 for funding to complete sidewalk and streetscape renovations on Cuyler between Thornton Avenue and Hamilton Street and Pentz Street between Gordon Street and Morris Street.
“It would improve pedestrian mobility in an area that has a lot of interest with restaurants and retail and other storefronts,” Parker said. “We’ve just got a lot of activity and unfortunately a lot of that infrastructure has aged so if we prevail with that grant the city is in a position to move forward with the streetscape project.”
New Charter
Finally, another project that kicked off at the end of 2022 and will gain traction in 2023 is the creation of a new charter for the City of Dalton. City staff has been working since the fall to write a new charter that is more in step with how the city functions in the 21st century.
“Some parts of the existing charter date back really to the founding of the city. A lot of it is outdated and not in line with the operating practices of the departments. Some departments aren’t even referenced in the charter,” Parker said.
A draft of the new charter will soon be ready to be presented for review by the Mayor and Council at one of their regular meetings. Because of the amount of changes in the document, it would likely require an act by the Georgia General Assembly to be enacted. That would likely not take place until the assembly’s 2024 session.
Happy New Year
A busy new year is on tap for the City of Dalton in 2023, and city leaders expect it to be a fruitful one. With shovels set to hit the dirt on a number of anticipated projects, there is a lot of excitement about what’s coming.
