Peachtree Boulevard Phase 2 work in home stretch

type='html'>The big question on the minds of everyone who drives Peachtree Road through the heart of Buckhead’s central business and shopping area is: When is this roadwork going to be finished?

Brian McHugh

The good news is that the work is in the home stretch, according to project manager Brian McHugh of the Buckhead Community Improvement District (CID).

He told the CID board this week the road construction project should be done by Thanksgiving—“except for a punch list of some final items.”  Based on that, the CID wants to plan a ceremony around that time to celebrate the concluding of work on Peachtree Boulevard Phase 2.

McHugh told BuckheadView Thursday, “September has really been a good month in terms of getting work done” on various aspects of the seemingly endless project. He added. “You can see a lot of activity going on and a lot of workers on the job right now.”

Buckhead CID Board Chair David Allman, left, and Executive Director
Jim Durrett listen to a presentation at last Tuesdays board meeting. 

Trees  were placed along Peachtree in front of Lenox Square on Tuesday night. The sidewalk in front of the Ritz-Carlton will “go in starting the end of this week,” McHugh told the CID board, and lighting will be completed by mid-October.

CID board member Robin Suggs, who is general manager of Simon Property Group that owns Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza in the midst of the construction work, might have been a tad nervous during the discussion of some lingering items on a punch list as Thanksgiving and the holiday shopping season nears.

But McHugh assured the board the items that will remain on the punch list to be completed in November will be small things, although some of the plantings will not be done until the fall season in November.

CID Board member Robin Loudermilk, foreground, listens to
a board discussion, along with BATMA Executive Director
Denise Starling and CID project manager Brian McHugh. 

Board members Robin Loudermilk and John Lundeen both expressed some concern about the lack of progress in planning the traffic and streetscape improvements to Peachtree Road south of Maple Drive and down past the Buckhead Atlanta site to Pharr Road.

McHugh and CID Executive Director Jim Durrett assured the board that the studies are progressing on what to do in that area of Peachtree Road and that updates should be forthcoming shortly.

Regarding improvements to the Piedmont/Habersham roads intersection, McHugh requested $3,300 in CID funds to hire a consultant to give an initial “certified appraiser to do estimates to submit to GDOT to start on a right-of-way acquisition.” The request was unanimously approve.