Writer: Hadley Cottingham
Published April 6, 2022
Now Habersham
The City of Cornelia has voted to enter into a contract with the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership for beautification projects in Downtown Cornelia. The projects would take place over the summer.
During their Tuesday night meeting, the Cornelia Commission heard a presentation from Clark Stancil of The University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government (CVIOG). The institute proposed beautification projects for the city, from adding a mural to Level Grove Road to new landscaping downtown.
The work is an educational opportunity for CVIOG graduate students that brings a fresh perspective to a downtown area. The planning is done by a land architecture graduate student from the University of Georgia’s College of Environment Design, who will be partnered with Cornelia to address current challenges, according to Stancil.
The same group helped the City of Clarkesville rebuild after the 2014 fire in Downtown Clarkesville that destroyed historic buildings and local businesses.
The proposed projects would be fairly inexpensive, Stancil told the commissioners, but what projects they decide to go through with are ultimately up to them. The partnership, which includes CVIOG, the Georgia Municipal Association, the Georgia Cities Foundation and the Lydenhurst Foundation, works with each city to find solutions that work for their needs and budget.
The partnership will sit down with the city to determine what projects they want to work on and what their budget will be for those projects, and present the city with a plan of potential projects, similar to the plan they gave the City of Clarkesville before beginning work.
The city expects the program to begin this summer and run for a total of 12 weeks.
