What’s the status of beautification plan in downtown Augusta?
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Throughout downtown Augusta, you’ll find various construction projects to improve the city.
But when all is said and done, what is being done to preserve the new construction?
Millions of dollars are being poured into various projects on streets like Greene Street and Telfair Street.
But some question how much will be poured into the maintenance once things are all done.
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Downtown Augusta is a maze of construction cones and cranes.
“It’s cumbersome, but we’re working with it,” said downtown business owner Collin McCoy.
The sounds feel less like progress and more like an endless echo.
“It’s just hard to make plans, long-term plans personally and with business when you don’t know what’s happening next. I mean, behind me, this curve has been torn up for a year and a half and in front of my house, they tore half the sidewalk out a year ago,” said McCoy.
A multimillion-dollar facelift is looking like a botched job for some.
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“It’s very frustrating. Some of it feels rushed. Some of it feels avoided and delayed. And it’s just hard. Again, it’s hard to make any kind of. Business plans with around this chaos,” said McCoy.
The biggest question on a lot of minds is what the plan really is, and if that plan will remain in place once the job is complete.
Mayor Garnett Johnson said: “We see the plantings coming in and we see the beautiful brick that’s been installed. We just want to be able to maintain that as the years move forward.”
It’s a conversation the mayor says he’s had since taking office.
“How do we create a centralized ground maintenance and trees department where we have 100 percent ability for cutting the grass maintaining the beautification of Augusta and maintaining our trees? That’s an initiative that I’m going to continue into 2025,” said Johnson.
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Every project comes with some bumps in the road.
“I feel like they could do things a little better with a little more communication and planning,” said McCoy. “I don’t know whether I should be renovating something or waiting or it’s just it’s hard to tell.”
For now, all he can do is wait for the dust to settle.
City leaders are aware of the troubles with the construction.
They are working with engineering to figure out what a maintenance schedule looks like.
They want to not only make downtown beautiful but stay beautiful.
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