Work on renovating the triangular park at Peachtree and Roswell roads will continue into next year, wrapping up in February or March, according to the executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District.
“By the end of February, you’ll look at it and go, ‘Hey, that’s a completed park,” CID Executive Director Jim Durrett said.
The $2.5 million renovation of Charlie Loudermilk Park originally was scheduled to be completed months ago, but construction was delayed so the work wouldn’t conflict with other nearby projects, such as streetscape improvements around the Buckhead Atlanta development, Durrett said.
The location of the park at the conjunction of two state highways made scheduling lane closings for construction more difficult than anticipated, he said.
The CID’s early estimates said the park would be finished by last April, then by July. Work now is under way to install the park’s “hardscape,” Durrett said. “The hardscape is going great,” he said.
The CID now hopes to hold a formal opening for the park in late March or early April, Durrett said.
“Getting that park done is our highest priority now,” he said.
Plans for the park, bordered by Peachtree and Roswell roads and Sardis Way, called for the construction of a clock tower, the addition of a statue of park namesake and Buckhead businessman Charlie Loudermilk, covered seating, and grass and trees.
The clock tower is being built in two parts, Durrett said. The base will be built at the site, while the top of the tower, including clocks and bells, will be built in North Carolina and moved to the site, he said. The tower is modeled on a larger clock tower at the University of North Carolina, which Loudermilk attended, Durrett said.
The plan now is to put the clocks atop the tower in late February, he said.
“We’re trying to keep the work moving forward,” he said.
But will the incredible statuary that used to be there be back? It had a story-telling circle with bronze animals and an amazing half horned being/half man.