Town Hall Meeting Scheduled Thursday at 6:30pm at the Classic Center

Just as they did in November, the public is invited to the Classic Center to focus on the evolving Athens Downtown Master Plan. Only this time, instead of concepts, such as having more green space, people will be viewing concrete proposals, like a linear park running from downtown to Lay Park.

The meeting will be led by UGA Environmental Design professor Jack Crowley, who has been working on the plan with a team of graduate students for months. They have talked to various constituencies and stakeholders about how they want downtown to develop for the next 20 years or so. The Athens Downtown Development Authority board is paying the team $30,000 for their work.

Some of the ideas generated during the process include include a park replacing the parking lot at City Hall; a traffic circle at Thomas and Dougherty; renovation and rebuilding the Mumur Trestle as part of a commuter shed; creation of a park around a retention pond near the Multi-Modal Station.

Crowley has also urged the ADDA board to press the Athens Clarke County Commission to create a tax allocation district in the eastern part of downtown to help pay for some of the improvements. The Commission would have to approve such a measure, and the Clarke County School Board would have to agree to give up its portion of the property taxes in the tax allocation district.

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