Sugar Hill delays City Hall grand opening

As of Tuesday, November 13, 2012
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

SUGAR HILL -- Sugar Hill residents who've circled Dec. 1 on their calendar will need to flip the page and recircle.

Gwinnett's fourth-largest city hoped to have its new City Hall complete enough for a public preview the night of the city's downtown tree lighting, but instead announced at Tuesday night's monthly City Council meeting that it needs another several weeks, tentatively until its grand opening Jan. 12 or 13.

Flooring inside the $11 million hall at West Broad Street and Temple Drive won't be installed by Dec. 1, so residents that night will be able to see only the 33,000-square-foot facility's exterior from its adjacent parking deck. Fully available, however, will be the neighboring amenity pond and its encircling walkway, as well as the half-mile downtown streetscape including wide sidewalks and globe street lamps down West Broad from Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, to Ga. Highway 20.

The hall is largely complete, though. Its grand foyer and flanking stairs, its rear apse and portico, as well as cupola with clocks above are in place. But its marble floor in the foyer can't be installed until heavy lifts are no longer needed for millwork high above.

"I'm not disappointed," City Manager Bob Hail said. "Dec. 1 was just a little ambitious."

Separately Tuesday, the council approved resident William Eubanks' request for variances to build a 30-foot square detached garage at his residence at 1159 Pine Thicket Drive in the Cheeley & Duncan subdivision, abutting the Old Suwanee Estates.

Gwinnett Daily Post