Progress 2020

SECTION C

PROGRESS

2020 BUSINESS & INDUSTRY

FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS

2C | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY

Halcyon makes its debut

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

W

eaving through the stores and open areas of Halcyon, visitors shopped, grabbed lunch or simply walked around and checked out the new development.

After years of planning and construction, several retailers and restaurants in mixed-use development opened their doors on Wednesday, Sept. 18 complete with lots of activities, live music and giveaways.

“This is the opening of the first wave of restaurants, retail, various boutiques in Halcyon, and it’s a day where the community can come out and see what’s been happening here over the last couple of years,” said Phil Mays, with Halcyon developer RocaPoint Partners.

Halcyon was first approved in 2015 and construction began the next year.

Once complete, the 135-acre, $370 million project will include 300,000 square feet of office space, 665 new homes and townhomes, two hotels, a dine-in cinema, a parking deck, open space, community greens and a 7,700-square-foot Market Hall with a variety of eateries. Last December, a new trailhead on the Big Creek Greenway opened next to the development.

Halcyon allows open containers onpremises if alcohol is bought from one of the tenants and has a special focus on dogs, including lots of programs welcome to furry friends and water bowls all around.

“I think it’s been long wanted and needed by the community to have somewhere in the area for people to come and congregate and be able to hang out and relax, get something to eat or drink, exercise off the greenway — the greenway does terminate into our site — and a place to go with your friends and your family,” Mays said.

A total of nine restaurants, retailers and boutiques opened on Wednesday, and nearly two dozen more have announced their planned opening.

“It feels fantastic,” said Charles White, with RW Design & Exchange, which was opening its doors on Wednesday ahead of a full opening

next week. “I know there has been a lot of build-up to this point, and we absolutely love it, love the developers and

the folks opening today and the folks opening in the near future. We feel very confident about what it’s going to bring

for the future.”

The anchor tenant of Halcyon is CME CinéBistro, which will offer a full sports bar — CMX Stone — and chef-driven meals for viewers in the theater’s nine screens.

T h o u g h a n o p e n i n g d a t e wa s announced for 2017 at the project’s groundbreaking, the development was delayed primarily by wet weather conditions, including a particularly rainy 2018.

It appears the extra time gave the public time to get excited for the project, with hundreds of visitors stopping by throughout the day to check it out.

Among those attending the opening were Keith and Brenda Hall, who not only said they were excited to see the new stores but are planning to move to the soon-to-open 55-plus housing on site.

“It’s going to be a big community, is what I think. It’s going to be great, especially if you’re living here and can come down [to the stores],” Keith said.

The Halls said they are moving from Cherokee County after wanting to downsize and looked around the area for apartments before their son told them about what was coming to Halcyon.

“We came up here and saw all the things that were being built and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to make a lifestyle change right now,’” Brenda said.

Halcyon is the most visible and largest of a spate of mixed-use — or livework-play — developments planned or approved in Forsyth County in recent years.

“I just think it’s an opportunity for Forsyth County to expand in a positive way, not just for the sake of expansion, to have unique opportunities for businesses and customers alike,” White said of Halcyon. “I think Forsyth County needs more and more of this type of development.”

Mays said he is excited to see what the future holds for Halcyon and what kind of impact it has on south Forsyth.

“For the people here, it will give them an awesome place to go and to shop, to eat, to relax, to exercise,” Mays said. “Then, for Forsyth County itself, it’s a great economic engine as far as a tax revenue generator and quality of life generator for the county as well.”

60-home development near Lake Lanier approved

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

A 60-unit development on Shady Grove Road has been approved amid traffic concerns from neighbors.

Forsyth County Commissioners approved a sketch plat for 6090 Shady Grove, LLC for The Ascent at Lake Lanier, which will have 60 residences on 57 acres on both sides of Shady Grove.

Developers said The Ascent would have a focus on wellness, including walking trails, a wellness center, space for yoga and other classes. All homes will face toward a central green area, and the neighborhood will include a dock with up to 13 slips on Young Deer Creek.

“I get to work on a lot of different plans kind of over the southeast, but I only get to work on a few of them that are really cool and that kind of the focus of them is to ask us to do it in a pure pedestrian, walkable fashion,” said Kenneth Woods, an engineer for the project.

The development will be located south of the intersection with Cagle Drive and will be on both sides of

Shady Grove.

The meeting brought out several nearby residents who voiced concerns with the project.

While many said they were generally supportive of the development, many of the speakers had concerns that the new homes would increase traffic and that there should be some type of traffic con-

trol. Shady Grove Road is already prone to closing when there is a serious accident, they said, meaning drivers could not leave or make it home.

“It is a peninsula — basically one road in, one road out — and if there’s any problem on the road, we have serious issues,” said resident Steve Schmidt.

“That is my concern, and I’m not sure

it’s being addressed correctly.”

Woods said plans had already changed to put the entrance of the neighborhood along the road’s straightaway to improve visibility.

“We actually did, on an early site plan, we had the entrance moved further up the road, then on the most recent revision, the entrance was pulled down to go further down into the straightaway,” he said. “We’ve looked at the sight distance, but for some reason working with the transportation [department], we have the ability to shift it down even further.”

Chairwoman Laura Semanson said the approved neighborhood was much less dense than what had previously been approved for the area and that the l a n d ’s z o n i n g d i s t r i c t — L a ke Residential — was no longer available.

“This property was actually zoned a very, very long time ago,” Semanson said. “Lake Res is a category that we don’t even have available to apply for now, and when the original zoning was done, it actually would have afforded them up to 97 lots on this property.”

More information about the development is available at TheAscentLife.com/ the-ascent-at-lake-lanier.

ForsythNews.com | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | 3C

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY

New look, new space for Chamber

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

The local chamber of commerce made some big changes in 2019.

In November, the former Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce debuted a new logo along with its new name: the Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce.

James McCoy, president and CEO of the chamber, said the process of changing the name began about two years ago at a chamber retreat, where board members discussed changes to the chamber, community and expectations from the community had changed over the last 10-or-so years.

“It prompted a very healthy conversation about our brand and does our brand match those expectations, what are those expectations of our members and our investors in the community,” he said.

“So we started a conversation with the board about setting out to do the necessary research and work to have a very broad-based and thoughtful approach to our brand that can hopefully take us through not just the next 10 years, but the next 20 or 30 years moving forward.”

The name, McCoy said, isn’t exactly new but is the original name the chamber formed under in 1952. He said he believes Cumming was added to the name sometime in the 1980s but he wasn’t able to confirm when.

To gather input for the changes,

McCoy said the chamber held meetings with “hundreds and hundreds” of stakeholders, the community and chamber members to get their thoughts on the chamber’s brand and later consulted with economic development clients, state officials and other organizations and businesses to come up with the new brand.

“Everybody thinks about a brand as being a logo, but it’s much deeper than that, it’s basically the personality of your organization,” McCoy said. “So, the feedback came back that, ‘Yes, we feel the organization has changed tremendously, and it really is time to look at the brand and overall experience that people have with the chamber and really take a hard look at that and see if that’s matching our expectations as investors in the community.’”

Derek Brooks, owner of Brandywine Printing and a member of the chamber’s board of directors who served on the rebranding committee, said the name change came about after internal questions with the chamber and surveys with the community.

One of those questions was about the name and asked if it reflected the community. Brooks said many felt the name was long and often shortened it anyway.

“There was a lot of input from that, but the overwhelming majority said Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce is a mouthful, no one ever says Cumming,’” said Brooks.

As part of the rebranding, responders were asked to describe their expectations of the chamber and what roles they felt it should play, which McCoy said would be used for future programming and events from the chamber.

“This is the beginning of a much longer process, and in fact, the name and the logo are sort of the tip of the iceberg, and I mean that in the most figurative sense in that that’s the part that people get to see. The part that is not visual is the experience.”

Though the name was kept under wraps, McCoy said he heard only positive responses from those who saw the change ahead of time.

“The response has been incredibly positive, largely, I think, because all of that is the result of data,” McCoy said. “All we did was ask people, ‘What do you think about our brand and what do you want out of it?’ So what it tells me, the little bit of exposure it has had already, it is answering what the community has asked us to do and what our investors have asked us to do.”

Then, in December, the Chamber broke ground on a new home on Webb Street in downtown Cumming.

T h e n e w t w o - s t o r y, 12,000-square-foot facility is set to open in July. Chamber officials sold and moved out of their longtime location on Kelly Mill Road and have moved into temporary space.

“This new building will house the chamber that will be the gold standard for local economic development organizations in the nation,” McCoy said during a groundbreaking ceremony, “a chamber that is on the very cutting-edge of what supporting entrepreneur startups and technology firms, what that means in this country.”

While looking toward the future of the chamber, McCoy also brought up the organization’s past and how far both the chamber and local area have come in recent years.

“Sixty-five years ago, a group of business leaders decided they wanted more for their community,” McCoy said. “They got together at Sawnee EMC, and

they talked about creating a chamber of commerce, and those folks wanted then what we still want today, greater prosperity, they wanted greater economic opportunity, they wanted their kids to have a better life than they did. They wanted a community where building a better life wasn’t just a dream, but it was a daily reality.”

McCoy said the first chamber’s first economic development project was bringing a chicken plant to downtown Cumming, and since then, the chamber had become one of the most well respected in the state.

Over the last year, the chamber has served 39 economic development clients representing $105 billion in capital improvements and 824 new jobs, along with eight film productions.

“I often wonder about what those business leaders 65 years ago would say if they could see that Forsyth County is in the very top tier of the most affluent communities in the nation,” McCoy said. “That our public schools are internationally recognized for high graduation rates and test scores, that we’re home to 75 international companies, that we are continually ranked among the healthiest counties in the country and the healthiest in Georgia and remarkably that the central challenge that we face as a community is what we can do with all of this growth we are blessed with, how we can maintain that growth and prosperity for generations to come.”

These popular restaurants are coming to South Forsyth this fall

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

Some popular eateries are coming to a planned 11-acre retail site on McFarland Parkway.

Officials recently broke ground on Bluegrass Village, located on the southwest corner of the McFarland-Ga. 400 interchange, which will include freestanding locations for Longhorn Steakhouse and Starbucks coffee, 6,900 square feet of retail space including a Jimmy John’s and five acres for pad development.

The property is owned by Regent Partners, and O’Leary Partners, Inc. has been hired as the retail developer.

“We are thrilled to welcome each of

these national retailers to the Bluegrass Village Development. These executed leases demonstrate the unanswered demand for retail users in this market over the past several years,” said Courtney O’Leary, vice president of O’Leary Partners, Inc. Officials said they are excited about “synergy” with other nearby developments, including Halcyon. Bluegrass Village is expected to open by fall 2020.

“Regent Partners has owned these 11 acres of land since 1993 so it’s great to see the increased activity. We look forward to delivering a high-quality project that benefits the surrounding community for years to come,” Adam Allman, director at Regent.

Crews work at the future site of Bluegrass Village, on McFarland Parkway, on Wednesday, March 11, 2020.

Brian Paglia Forsyth County News

This local networking group is giving moms a co-working space in Cumming

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

Leaders of a new business in Cumming are hoping it will provide a space for local moms to learn, work and make new connections.

Because Mom, named for and affiliated with a popular local Facebook group of the same name, is planning to hold a grand opening from 7-9 p.m. on Saturday, March 14 at their new space, 110 Samaritan Drive, Ste. 211.

Caroline Ryan, owner and founder of Because Mom, started the group more than two years ago, when she saw a post on Facebook from another mom asking if she was the only one who had no friends to hang out with in the area.

Ryan subsequently created the Facebook group, also called Because Mom, which has grown to more than 4,500 members.

“We were renting out spaces for our coffee meetups, event space, really just anything because we have a lot of members that get to get together,” Ryan said. “I was like, ‘Let’s

Photos by Kelly Whitmire Forsyth County News

Because Mom, named for and affiliated with a popular local Facebook group of the same name, is planning to hold a grand opening from 7-9 p.m. on Saturday, March 14 at their new space, 110 Samaritan Drive, Ste. 211.

stop paying money on all these things and do our own thing,’ and there’s no co-working space that I’m aware of in Cumming.”

The space consists of a main working area, meeting rooms and a space for classes, groups and meetings in the back, all of which are for rent at varying rates. In the main area, there will be space for local vendors

to sell their products.

“In the front, we’ll do coworking space, coffee meetups, nighttime events,” Ryan said. “In the back, we’ll have rental space and classes and such. Also, [out front] we’ll be doing consignment ... Other mom boutiques and things like that can come in and sell their products and help us as well as give back to the community,

because we get a percentage from them, but we give back.

There’s always mamas and women in need, so that’s kind of our mission, to be able to help them and guide them.”

Jessica Lusk, the group’s events coordinator, said many of the products sold as consignment will be “things that make mom life a little bit easier,” including clothing, spa and pampering products, jewelry, products like teas and elderberry syrups and even the works of art on the walls, which were created by local artists.

“Our purpose at Because Mom is to get all these women that we support out of their living room, put the kids down, put the phone down and really be able to experience life with other moms,” Lusk said. “It takes a village everywhere, and

we feel like all the things we’re providing them the opportunity to be a part of are just helping them be a better wife, a better mom and a better them.”

Previously, Because Mom had rented out other space or met at local businesses for networking groups, but the changing locations and times made it difficult for business owners to keep up with where they were.

Lusk said along with growing businesses, the space will also help moms build relationships with each other.

“I can’t tell you the amount of growth Because Mom has seen just really in the last year with focusing on those networking opportunities and really getting to know those other businesses and helping to support them,” Lusk said.

“We’re really big on supporting the small businesses, especially female-owned businesses.”

More information is available online at BecauseMom. net. Those with questions can reach out at the business’s Facebook page at Facebook. com/BecauseMomAtlanta.

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Sunday, March 29, 2020

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Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

ARTS & COMMUNITY

Group brings more art to the community

By Alexander Popp FCN regional staff

Art in the city of Cumming just got an upgrade, with a series of renovations that were recently completed at the Brannon-Heard House.

According to members of the Sawnee Association of the Arts (SAA), has been hard at work transforming the artistic space on Pilgrim Mill Road into a bigger, better gallery, with more space for artwork.

Carole Kjellsen, who was part of the SAA committee to renovate the artistic space, said in September that they have done nearly a complete redesign of the Brannon-Heard House, painting, removing obstructions, and installing lights and hanging systems all around the space.

“We now have six galleries throughout the house that are open,” she said.

“We used to just have the one downstairs.”

With the new gallery design, Kjellsen said that they can accommodate many more artists and art works, which has been a goal of the group for a long time.

More than 100 pieces of art were on display throughout the space.

In addition to adding more space for artworks, Kjellsen said that they’ve also changed up the frequency that art is refreshed in and out of the space.

“The way we had it set up before, we were limited in the number of artists who could display, because they rented their spots for a year, so we did away with that concept,” she said. “It worked for the last year, it was very successful for us, but the problem was it restricted the number of artists who could have their works on display.”

Kjellsen said that starting now; everyone displaying work in the art space will rotate their work out every eight weeks, regularly filling the space with new pieces of art.

“With the opportunity to have more artists’ displaying, we’ll be able to present to the public a lot more fresh art that they haven’t seen before,” she said.

With the physical redesign, Kjellsen said that the group has also decided to

Photos by Ben Hendren for the Forsyth County News

Sawnee Association of the Arts (SAA), worked hard last year transforming the artistic space on Pilgrim Mill Road into a bigger, better gallery, with more space for artwork.

rebrand the space as not just the Brannon-Heard House or the Sawnee Association of the Arts Center, but as the new “Cumming Arts Center.” A change they hope will give people a memorable, less complicated name for everyday use.

“Because for some reason when you say ‘Sawnee Association of the Arts’ … nobody seems to know who we are, and we’ve been around for a long time,” she said. “So we decided to incorporate ‘art center’ in there somewhere.”

All these changes ultimately go back to the group’s goal of promoting art and making it easily accessible in the city of Cumming, Kjellsen said.

“We’re hoping that it will draw in new members, but we’re also hoping it will draw in the public, especially all the new people that are moving into Forsyth County,” she said. “We actually have an art gallery here now; they don’t have to go outside the county to look at art.”

Photos by Kelly Whitmire Forsyth County News

Students help paint mural at Cumming Fairgrounds

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

It may be fall according to the calendar, but this particular Thursday in September was a scorcher reaching more than 90 degrees. But the heat didn’t stop nearly 100 local students, along with artists from the area, from working on a new mural at the Cumming Fairgrounds that commemorates buildings, landmarks and life in the city of Cumming.

“Members of the Sawnee Association of the Arts, some students, some of our teachers have been coming out here off and on to work on it,” said Catherine Keyser, fine arts specialist for Forsyth County Schools.

“Today, with the help of the city, the fairgrounds staff and the Sawnee Association of the Arts, Black Dog Design House and teachers, we were able to make it a field trip experience for the kids, so we’ve had some of our schools be able to do it. We have almost 100 kids out here working on this, middle and high school.”

Artists were working to put the mural on a new concrete wall outside the fairgrounds, built as part of a pedestrian bridge from the fairgrounds to a parking lot.

The project left a large, blank space, which Mayor Troy Brumbalow contacted Sawnee Association of the Arts about to work on the mural.

In turn, SAA members contacted school officials and held a contest for students to design the mural.

“It’s absolutely awesome. It’s incredible,” Kris Straukas, with SAA. “It’s what the mayor wanted, and I think it’s a great learning experience for the kids too and the art classes. It’s been a learning experience for all of us that have been working on the mural because

we’re not used to working in such large perspectives and such, so it’s been a learning curve for all of us.”

The winning design was by then-Otwell eighth-graders Matty Mabry and Ashlyn Mote, now freshmen at Forsyth Central High School.

They were among the students from a handful of schools present for the day of painting and said the final product wasn’t too different from their proposal.

“There is a majority of it that is the same, but they’ve changed some of the placement, which is understandable because it’s like 300 feet long and our design was only about half of it, so they stretched it out and added some things,” Mabry said. “For the most part, it’s still the same.”

Mote said both had been drawing “since we picked up pencils, pretty much” and thought it was interesting to see so many people working on the project.

“It’s really cool to see everything come together on

such a large scale and have our art and everyone else’s art put out there,” she said.

M.J. David, with Black Dog Design House, a local design team, said she wasn’t an artist but a “cheerleader for the arts” and coordinated getting supplies and people together for the project.

After all the planning, she said it was great to see the work actually getting done.

“It’s been really cool because we’ve got our seasoned artists and then these up-and-coming new artists and just the meld of their talents has been really cool to watch,” David said.

Before the students came by, those driving down Castleberry Road may have seen some work done, mostly mountains, trees, a lake and other items and outlines for some of the buildings on the wall.

“It was mostly the SAA members that got all the buildings and everything sketched out, along with the courthouse and the statues, pier for the lake and everything,” Straukas said. “Now, we’re hoping the kids will fill all that space in.”

Kids were painting in animals, John Forsyth and other historical figures, school logos, local historic buildings like the Brannon-Heard House and more commemorating the history of the city and Forsyth County.

“It’s been a great experience for them to be a part of something that they for years can look at and go, ‘I was part of that,’ and it’s a huge piece for the community,” Keyser said. “We’ve got Chief Sawnee, the [Historic Cumming] Schoolhouse, the gazebo, the Sinclair Gas Station. It’s all the pieces that make the city unique.”

ForsythNews.com | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | 7C

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

ARTS & COMMUNITY

Residents brave the first-ever Cumming Scare Fair Money raised from haunted house went to American Cancer Society

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

O ve r t h e s u m m e r, t h e Cumming Fairgrounds saw infected, contaminated water, a breakout of zombie-like infections and other creatures and had a lot of support for a local cancer non-profit. Well, at least one of those was real.

The Cumming Scare Fair, a new local haunt attraction, was open for two weekends in October and brought out more than 3,500 visitors to check out the haunted house and a midway featuring food, games and performances by Qui Vive, a collaborative group of about 13 performers who put on “The Upside Down Circus.”

Rena Pendley with the American Cancer Society said not only did the Scare Fair get a great response from visitors, it helped spread the group’s message.

“The Scare Fair was a success for the Forsyth County area, not only for fundraising [Relay for Life] but for the recognition of the American Cancer Society Relay for Life in Forsyth County,” Pendley said. “We were able to showcase Relay for Life to new individuals who did not know that the American Cancer Society supported it like they did.”

For weeks ahead of the event, organizers ran videos promoting the Scare Fair with a newscaster growing more and more infected while reporting on contami-

nation of water at the fictional Cumming Water Authority.

Pendley said the story got a big response from attendees.

“Everybody that was coming out of the haunt was talking about how they loved that it had a storyline, that it wasn’t just a scare, there was a storyline behind it,” she said. “They loved how we built the storyline prior to the haunt and that it was actually really scary.”

Pendley said the event was also something new for longtime volunteers for Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society, which often holds events for the whole family rather than a haunted house recommended for teens and up.

“Our Relay for Life leadership team, I think it put a new energy in them,” Pendley said.

“Everybody had so much fun.

This is a totally different fundraiser than anything we’ve ever taken on before, and just to watch the talent of the haunt team of [Jeff and Julia Maney and Kevin Hopkins], just to watch their talent and vision come to fruition and have such a successful haunt I think put us all in awe of their talent.”

Not only did the event introduce new volunteers to the American Cancer Society, it also helped those in need of its programming get some information.

“We actually had a patient in the area that went to the Hope Lodge, which is a home away from home for cancer patients

Victoria Callaway poses for a photo Saturday, Oct. 26 between guests at the Cumming Scare Fair. She volunteered to work in the Relay for Life’s haunted attraction in honor of her mother who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2006 and passed away shortly after.

who are taking treatment in the Atlanta area,” Pendley said.

“They actually [said] how they heard about the Hope Lodge and the American Cancer Society was the Cumming Scare Fair. So, we’ve really made a difference in the com-

munity, and that’s what makes us all so happy it was such as success.”

With all the success, there are already plans to bring the Scare Fair back this year. Planning for the 2019 event got a late start in July. Planning for this

year’s event has already started.

They also hope for more volunteers this year.

“We are hoping to double our volunteer base,” Pendley said.

“I would like to start putting the plugs in now. Anybody who would be interested in helping with this thing next year, we’re going to start meeting in January, that way we can make sure we have it planned for the coming year.”

Pendley said anyone interested in getting involved with this year’s Scare Fair can contact her at Rena.Pendley@Cancer. org or 470-344-0410. More information about the American Cancer Society can be found at Cancer.org or by calling 1-800-227-2345.

Forsyth becoming a focal point of youth cricket in metro area

By David Almeda

dalmeda@forsythnews.com

As the sun rose on the morning of May 24, so too did the hopes of the Atlanta Cricket Academy.

It was a day that coach Deepak Roy and all his players had been training for over the past year. The academy was hosting its second annual national tournament at the Atlanta Cricket Grounds in north Forsyth County, with 24 teams from 10 different states set to attend.

Last year’s event was cut short due to poor weather conditions, but early on, it was clear that wouldn’t be an issue again.

As the players began filing in around 8 a.m., the heat was already beginning to ramp up, and they all began to slather on as much sunscreen as possible.

When play finally began an hour later, the heat was immense, but that wasn’t the focus of the Avatars, the Academy’s U15 team. Their first matchup of the threeday event was against Cricmax, a team from New Jersey that was seen as one of the top youth teams in the country. Roy, who moved to Atlanta from India around 10 years ago, stood just outside the boundary, coaching his players from afar and fulfilling what has become his calling.

“Initially, I thought there was only adult cricket (here),” Roy said. “But then when I noticed a few young kids who are very dedicated to the game, it was a very good feeling, actually. I had a cricket background and I really enjoyed seeing kids here practicing hard.”

For the last few years, Forsyth County, which has a growing South Asian population, has become a focal point of youth cricket in the Atlanta area. While cricket is a very popular sport in other areas of the world, it’s still finding its footing in the U.S., a fact that the academy is hoping to help change with time.

A U13 batsman from the Atlanta Cricket Academy warms up before a game on May 24, 2019 at the Atlanta Cricket Grounds in North Forsyth.

“We’re blessed,” Roy said. “For the last two and a half years, we’ve had kind of a home (here).”

Cricket is a bat and ball game that in some ways draws similarities to baseball.

Teams take turns batting, fielding and scoring runs, but in a different way.

Instead of a dirt infield and bases, the game revolves around a strip of dirt called the pitch, which is surrounded by a large, circular grass field.

The batsman stands on one end of the pitch and faces the bowler, who runs up to the other end and throws the ball towards him. It’s the batsman’s goal to score runs by striking the ball and running to the other end of the pitch and back. Meanwhile, the bowler and the fielders around him try to dismiss the batsman, or get him out, in different ways. One way to do that is if the bowler strikes the wicket, a set of three stumps which is protected by the batsman.

After 10 outs, the sides switch. In a

T20 format, a shorter form of the game that the academy plays, each team gets one innings each, and whoever scores the most runs in that span wins.

The academy started in 2017, when Roy and a few other like-minded people saw the potential for a program to teach the game to young people in the area.

They started with just four players, but have since grown to 75 members from ages five to 18. The academy conducts all its training sessions in Forsyth County.

For tournaments, they’re grouped by age in a very similar manner to sports like baseball and soccer, with U11, U13 and U15 teams playing in their recent event. At the academy, they’re grouped into three batches based on skill level, which usually translates to age as well.

The cricket season lasts from March or April to October or November, with players busy traveling to tournaments around the country over that time. Some of the

older players also participate in season play in the Atlanta Cricket League. Roy, who played cricket in India, doesn’t have much time to play anymore with all the travel involved, but that doesn’t bother him.

“I’ve seen them growing (since) they were nine or 10 years old,” he said. “I’ve seen them evolving, I’ve seen them getting selected for nationals. I’m kind of more inclined towards that now.”

Fifteen-year-old batsman Viraj Vaghela didn’t initially have much interest in cricket. He played soccer in his younger years, but after watching India win just its second Cricket World Cup in 2011, he was inspired. He ultimately followed in his father’s footsteps, opting to make cricket his sport of choice. He now serves as the captain of the U15 Avatars.

“I wouldn’t say I’m an ambassador, but I do want to promote the game of cricket to kids that are growing up and who are not quite sure [about it,]” Vaghela said.

“It’s not big in the U.S. but that’s why guys like us are here in this academy and other academies that have joined us here.

We really want to inspire young kids to take it up in the United States of America.”

Cricket may be a different, almost foreign sport to most people in the U.S., but it’s growing. Despite the differences in popularity when compared to more mainstream sports, the lessons in teamwork, perseverance and sportsmanship that cricket teaches in a youth setting are all the same, Vaghela said.

“In the end, I think that might play a major role in how we turn out to be as individuals when we grow up,” Vaghela said. “I personally and we at the academy feel like it’s a great sport to take up, especially now that cricket is growing in the U.S. It’s wonderful to be a part of the game.”

How Forsyth County Public Library is responding to area’s growing diversity

By Brian Paglia

bpaglia@forsythnews.com

The Forsyth County Public Library has decided to expand its collection of foreign language materials, reflecting the increasing diversity of the area.

The library’s board voted Jan. 2 2 t o ex p a n d i t s Wo r l d Languages Collection to include fiction and nonfiction adult materials in Korean and Marathi, a language common in India, as well as add youth titles to existing collections of Tamil and Telugu materials, two other lan-

guages spoken in India.

In addition, the library will offer e-book titles in French and German.

The Forsyth County Public Library has offered materials in foreign languages for years.

Spanish first came to the Cumming branch “many, many years ago,” said Stephen Kight, deputy director of Forsyth County Public Library. Spanish materials then expanded to Post Road several years ago and Hampton Park in 2018.

The library’s World Languages Collection was created in

response to a patron survey conducted in 2016. The collection started with 500 titles in four languages: Hindi, Mandarin, Tamil and Telugu.

All four are major languages in countries in Asia, and three (Hindi, Tamil and Telugu) are spoken in India, reflecting the county’s rapid growth of AsianAmerican residents. Forsyth County had the fastest-growing Asian population in the country between 2017 and 2018 among counties with a total population of 20,000 or more with an increase of 11.5% (3,408) in resi-

dents who identify as Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Though World Languages is smaller than more traditional collections, it’s in demand, according to Jeff Fisher, material services manager with the library.

“You’ll see some huge checkout percentages,” Fisher said.

The library’s most recent patron survey, in 2019, convinced staff that it was time to expand the World Languages Collection. They will purchase 250 adult titles each in Korean and Marathi, and 50 youth titles

in Tamil and Telugu.

The survey found that interest in French and German materials was equal across its branches, so the library decided to begin that collection with electronic resources.

“The nice thing about that is anybody in the county can access to that immediately,” Kight said.

With the exception of Spanish, the World Languages Collection is housed at Sharon Forks Library, but materials are available county-wide through the library’s hold system and online for electronic resources.

8C | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

3RD FRIDAY OF EVERY MONTH (APRIL - JUNE)

5:00 - 8:00 PM

Sunday, March 29, 2020

JULY 4TH

Celebration Admission: $5.00 (13 & up) Street Dance | Food & Craft Vendors Childrens’ Activities 4pm - 10pm Fireworks 9:30 pm at Fairgrounds Annual Steam Engine Parade @10 am

SEPTEMBER 4th - SEPTEMBER 6th IPRA (International Professional Rodeo Association) World Championship Rodeo

Friday & Saturday 8 PM • Sunday 7 PM Admission (Advance Tickets Available): 13 & up - $15.00, 5 - 12 - $10.00 4 & under - FREE, Seniors 65+ $10.00 8 Event Rodeo includes: Bull Riding, Barrel Racing, Steer Wrestling, Saddle Bronc Riding, Bareback Riding, Calf & Team Roping, Cowgirls Breakaway Roping

Free Concerts & Shows with Paid Admission Heritage Village th th Indian Village Working Exhibits Cumming Country Fair & Festival Cotton Gin | Sawmill | Sorghum Mill Mon- Thurs 4 pm - 10 pm • Friday 4 pm - Midnight Cider Press | Blacksmith | Grist Mill Sat. 10 am - Midnight • Sunday 12:30 - 9:00 pm Quilters | Schoolhouse | Churches Fair Admission: Doctor’s Office | Dentist’s Office 11 & up - $10.00, 10 & under - FREE Barber Shop | Post Office | General Store Advance Tickets Available through October 7th - $7 Printing Press | Midway Rides Free Parking Daily Ground Acts Petting Zoo & Local Entertainment Grand Concert Lineup

OCTOBER 8 -18

235 CASTLEBERRY ROAD CUMMING, GEORGIA

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SECTION D

PROGRESS

2020 GOVERNMENT

City Center another step closer as officials break ground on project

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

As city of Cumming officials and partners turned dirt with golden shovels, a major project downtown took a big step toward becoming a reality.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Wednesday, Aug. 7 for the Cumming City Center, a development planning to feature restaurants, businesses, the Cumming Police Department and a movie theater in an undeveloped area west and northwest of Forsyth Central High School.

“We had a tremendous turnout, there had to have been well over 100 people, someone from the governor’s office, all our local folks,” said Cumming Mayor Troy Brumbalow. “We’re so excited about it. The first step in making the dream a reality.”

Brumbalow said the groundbreaking meant the project was “going to be in high gear now.”

First announced in the summer of 2018, the city center has been a big project for Brumbalow and the city of

Cumming over the last year.

“People don’t understand the significance of what’s taking place here,” said David Leathers, chairman of the Downtown Cumming Development Authority. “I’m not a real estate developer … but when you take a piece of raw land and take it through the entitlement and development process and the design process and the regulatory and environmental processes … It’s huge, and it’s a significant undertaking.”

The city center will be located on Canton Highway and will abut Forsyth Central High School on a 75-acre plot of land. The development will feature an amphitheater, walking trails, park, space for businesses and a lake with a fountain.

“Like the mayor said, it’s a destination. It’s a place for people to come have a drink, have dinner, see a concert,” said Andy Lovejoy, president of Civil Engineering Consultants. “The outdoor amphitheater, great opportunity for outdoor summer series concerts you see in other areas.”

Across Canton Highway, about 14

acres will also be donated to the city and will include other walking trails.

Forsyth Central and the city center will share a parking lot located northwest of the school’s football stadium.

Though the center will largely be green space and businesses, the Cumming Police Department and the city’s municipal court will also move to the development.

“I’ve got kids at Central,” Leathers said. “When this is done, they’ll be able to walk from school to the city center and there’s a police presence, and I don’t have to worry about if they’re safe or anything like that.”

Plans show the park will be near the amphitheater, which will likely be used for Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies, concerts, plays and other performances, and will include new memorials for veterans and public safety personnel.

Townhomes were once planned as part of the project but have since been removed.

Lovejoy said actual work on the project is going to start soon on installing a

new gravity sewer outfall and doing stream work on Kelly Mill Creek, which he likened to adding curves to a highway to slow down drivers.

“The existing sewer pipes that run through the site, they’re undersized and they’re old and they’re dilapidated,” he said. “The stream restoration, Kelly Mill Creek has been channelized to where the flow through here, the velocity of the water is too quick. It’s creating issues downstream.”

Once those parts of the work are done, the next step is mass grading later this year before construction starts in the spring.

According to Brumbalow, the plan is to have stores open by August 2021.

“It’s going to be a massive change for the city of Cumming. They’re doing the investment and the dirty work to make it happen for future generations,” Leathers said. “All I can do is applaud Troy and [City Administrator Phil Higgins] and their respective staffs for putting it together.”

City Center project (Dwell Studios)

2D | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

GOVERNMENT Biggest stories of the last decade in Forsyth

W

ith the 2010s behind us, it’s hard not to think about how much has changed in Forsyth County over the last decade.

In the last 10 years, one of Forsyth County’s own was elected to the state’s second highest office, downtown Cumming saw both tragedy and the opening of a new jail and courthouse and voters approved $200 million for local road work that resulted in new lanes on Ga. 400.

HERE’S A LOOK AT SOME OF THE BIGGEST STORIES OF THE LAST DECADE.

Mayor Troy Brumbalow Changing of leadership in Cumming In Nov. 2017, voters in the city of Cumming elected current Mayor Troy Brumbalow over his longtime predecessor, H. Ford Gravitt.

Gravitt had served as mayor since 1971 and had previously served a term as a city councilman, and over his 47 years in office, Cumming and Forsyth County experienced unprecedented growth and changes from what was once considered a small, rural community with few economic prospects to one of the most affluent, healthy and besteducated areas in the state.

In his term, Brumbalow has worked to increase the number of community events in the city, such as Fridays at the Fairground and Food Truck Fridays, and has spearheaded the push for the Cumming City Center, which will include restaurants and stores, outdoor space, an amphitheater and more.

The mayor’s office isn’t the only change, as longtime city councilmen Lewis Ledbetter (1971-2019), Rupert Sexton (1971-2015), Ralph Perry (19792015), Quincy Holton (1969-2017) and John Pugh (1992-2015) have also left office in recent years.

After little change for decades, counc i l m e m b e r s L i n d a L e d b e t t e r, Christopher Light, Jason Evans and Chad Crane, former councilman Chuck Welch and Councilman-elect Joey Cochran have been elected in recent years.

New Forsyth County Courthouse and Jail open Forsyth County voters approved SPLOST VII in 2011, which, among other projects, provided funding for the new Forsyth County Courthouse and Forsyth County Jail, both of which opened in 2015.

Both projects began construction in 2013 and were built to replace their aging predecessors, also located in downtown Cumming.

Before being approved, four times between 2001 and 2011, Forsyth voters rejected in referendums bond programs to build a new jail and/or courthouse.

Sharon Springs falls just short of threshold A bid to add a second city to Forsyth County came just short of being

approved in 2018, as the vote to establish the proposed city of Sharon Springs in south Forsyth fell shy of the threshold to become a reality.

Voting was limited to those living in the proposed area, and those in favor of the city made up about 54% of the vote (7,616) and those opposed about 46% (6,351). About 50,000 people would have lived in the area of the proposed city.

To pass, the city needed at least 57.5 percent of voters, a compromise between a simple majority and twothirds majority, which was stipulated in House Bill 626, which provided the process for creating the proposed city that was introduced by District 25 state Rep. Todd Jones.

The city was proposed with three services — zoning, sanitation and code enforcement – and the approximate boundaries of the proposed city were east of Ga. 400 except the portion west of McFarland Road; south of Hwy. 20 except for areas in the city of Cumming; west of the Chattahoochee River — already a boundary with Gwinnett County — and north of the Fulton County line.

- Kelly Whitmire

the state and other sources.

Since the bond passed, a common refrain from county leaders has been that kicking in money helped improve the relationship with GDOT and helped projects become a reality more quickly.

- Kelly Whitmire

The mixed-use development boom begins In October 2008, Vickery Village was facing its worst-case scenario. The 214acre project, with its 35 shops and restaurants and 250 residential units, was considered the blueprint by which mixeduse developments would be measured.

But then the country fell into the Great Recession, and the developer’s bank foreclosed on its collateral at Vickery.

“It is unfortunate that the ownership was faced with this financial correction,” said Frank Norton Jr., chairman and CEO of the Gainesville-based Norton Agency real estate and insurance firm.

“But long term, we will look back on this project and say that Vickery was always going to be a bright spot for south Forsyth.”

During the 2010s, Vickery Village came back to life, and now Forsyth County is getting swept up in metro

Vickery Village Atlanta’s appetite for mixed-use developments that accelerated after Avalon opened in Alpharetta in 2014.

Halcyon, a 134-acre, $370 million live-work-play project, opened this past September off Exit 12 of Ga. 400. A month earlier, the city of Cumming began construction on the Cumming City Center, a 75-acre project that it hopes will re-orient and invigorate the

city’s downtown area with dining, shopping and offices like similar developments have in Alpharetta and Suwanee.

Meanwhile, even more developments have been approved or proposed around the county and in the city of Cumming: a hotel and “millennial” housing project near Northside Hospital Forsyth; the 56-acre Mashburn Village on the south side of downtown Cumming; the 60-acre Westshore development on Market Place Boulevard and Turner Road; the Villages at Brandywine on 18.5 acres on McFarland Parkway; and on and on.

Growth of Asian-American community Two years ago, Patel Brothers, the largest Indo-Pakistani grocery store chain in the U.S., decided to build a new store in Forsyth County, off Peachtree Parkway.

For the company’s owners, it was pure math: Forsyth County had the largest growing Asian-American population in the country.

According to statistics released in June by the U.S. Census Bureau, Forsyth County had the fastest-growing Asian population in the country between 2017 and 2018 among counties with a total population of 20,000 or more with an increase of 11.5% (3,408) in residents who identify as Asian.

That growth has been reflected in almost every facet of Forsyth County, from its schools, where Asian-American students make up nearly one-fourth of the school system’s enrollment, to its faith community, which will welcome its seventh Hindu place of worship in 2020. The Atlanta Cricket Fields, a 58-acre complex with seven fields and a 10,000-square-foot clubhouse, opened in North Forsyth in 2016.

- Brian Paglia

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan Duncan becomes first-ever Georgia lieutenant governor from Forsyth County In the 2018 election, Forsyth County’s Geoff Duncan rose to a position no other county resident had before: Georgia’s lieutenant governor.

Duncan, a Republican, defeated Democratic opponent Sarah Riggs Amico by 52.2% of the vote, or about 1.95 million votes, to Amico’s 47.%, or 1.85 million votes, to win the seat, including 70.6%, or 65,798 votes, of Forsyth County votes.

Along with Duncan’s position helping the political clout of Forsyth County, the area has received renewed interested going into 2020 with the contentious race to replace retiring Rep. Rob Woodall in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, which contains the majority of Forsyth and Gwinnett counties.

- Kelly Whitmire

Forsyth voters approve $200 million transportation bond Traffic is a big issue in Forsyth County, and locals took the problem into their own hands in 2014, as voters approved a $200 million transportation bond to help with area traffic.

The bond was approved with 63% of voters, about 35,000 votes, in favor and 37%, about 20,000 votes, against, and the largest of the projects was the widening of Ga. 400 to three lanes on each side to Hwy. 369.

Along with the Ga. 400 widening project, the bond included several projects on state roads, including the widening of Post Road, widening of Hwy. 369 and Ga. 400 interchanges at Hwy. 369 and McGinnis Ferry Road. In total, those funds received about $81 million for the bond, along with funding from

NEW LOOK. SAME FOCUS. 770-887-6461 FOCOchamber.org

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Sunday, March 29, 2020

Forsyth County Georgia Government is pleased to provide quality services, outstanding amenities, top-notch public safety and great parks with green space covering more than 2,700 acres, all while maintaining taxes among the lowest in metro Atlanta.

DISTRICT

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Molly Cooper Secretary

Dennis Brown Member

Todd Levent Member

DISTRICT

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Cindy Jones Mills Vice Chairman

Laura Semanson Chairman

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It is the mission of the county’s elected officials and employees to provide effective, professional public service with integrity and a commitment to excellence.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you.

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Connect with Forsyth County government

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Connect with Forsyth County government today and be a part of our community’s future.

Visit us online at forsythco.com, tune into TV Forsyth and attend county government meetings.

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4D | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

Sunday, March 29, 2020

CITY OF CUMMING

SMALL TOWN HEART, BIG CITY SPIRIT Through decades of continued growth and urbanization, the City of Cumming has remained the steadily beating heart of our community.

From historic preservation to family-focused facilities, activities and events, the City of Cumming has always sought to maintain a small-town, close-knit community feel. At the same time, the City believes in fostering economic development to provide stability.

2020 brings unlimited opportunities for the City to enhance both its

SMALL TOWN HEART AND BIG CITY SPIRIT!

BEST OF FORSYTH

City of Cumming cityofcumming.net

TroyH.Brumbalow Ford Gravitt Mayor Mayor

Joey Cochran Lewis Ledbetter Councilman Councilman

Chad Quincy HoltonCrane Councilman Councilman

2019: Year in Review • Created Youth Council comprised of 9 students from Forsyth Central and Alliance Academy high schools • Constructed an elevated 2-million-gallon water storage tank with “Cumming Home” logo near Ga. 400 Exit 14 • Enjoyed successful spring & summer events: Food Truck Fridays, Fridays at the Fairgrounds, and summer music series in partnership with 37 Main and Rosati’s • 2nd annual all-day July 4th festivities including the Red White & Rock concert • Celebrated the Cumming Country Fair & Festival’s 25th Anniversary with record-breaking days • Installed new pedestrian sky bridge at the Fairgrounds over Castleberry Road, which debuted during the Fair • Partnered with members of the Sawnee Association of the Arts and local middle and high schools in the creation of a 2,000-square-foot mural highlighting Cumming and Forsyth County landmarks at the Fairgrounds • Successful 2nd Annual Christmas Parade & Festival in December • Bid farewell to retiring City Council member Lewis Ledbetter and welcomed new member Joey Cochran • Debuted “Welcome to the City of Cumming” video, highlighting City amenities and events

Jason Ralph Perry Councilman

Evans Councilman

Linda Christopher John D. Pugh Ledbetter Rupert Sexton Councilman Councilman Councilwoman

COMMUNITY EVENT Cumming Country Fair & Festival

Light Councilman

GYMNASTICS PROGRAM Cumming Rec Dept.

CONGRATULATIONS

to the Cumming Country Fair & Festival and Cumming Rec Dept. for earning “Best of Forsyth 2020” recognitions by Forsyth County News readers!

If you haven’t checked out all that the City of Cumming has to offer, you should soon!

Cumming City Center Taking Shape • Completed Phase I Environmental Assessment of the City Center Site • Hired Dwell Design Studio in Alpharetta for architectural designs, and Beltan Properties as general contractor of the project • Approved funding for boundary, topographical, and geo-technical surveys that will be needed throughout the development process • Held an official groundbreaking ceremony on Aug. 7, 2019 • Anticipated opening: August of 2021

Like Us on Facebook & Instagram! @cummingcityhall @CityofCumming

ForsythNews.com | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | 5D

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

2020

H E A LT H & E D U C AT I O N

Northside Hospital COO lays out plans for future, recent development

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

Northside Hospital Forsyth is currently both the tallest building and the largest private employer in Forsyth County, but even with those designations, the hospital has some plans on the way to become even bigger and better.

Northside Hospital Forsyth Administrator Lynn Jackson recently laid out some of the hospital’s future plans, including a $44 million expansion project, at an executive series event hosted by Digital Ignition, a technology incubator in south Forsyth.

Jackson told the crowd the hospital is awaiting a certificate of need from the state to move ahead with the project, which will add 43 medical surgical short-stay care beds and an additional two stories to the county’s tallest building.

“This expansion will be about 45,000 square feet, and will make [the hospital] 10 stories,” Jackson said. “I don’t know if y’all are in Forsyth County all the time, but that’s a skyscraper, the tallest b u i l d i n g i n F o r s y t h C o u n t y.

Construction will take us two years. We plan to go live, roughly, in the fall of 2021.”

In the application to the state, officials said the expansion would involve a “2-story vertical addition to an existing patient tower” adding 43 surgery shortstay beds and also include 21 “23-hour observation beds.” Each of the new floors will house 32 patient rooms, and the expansion will bring the total number of beds in the hospital to 363.

Officials said the expansion is needed due to the “rapid population growth” in the communities served by the hospital, including Forsyth adding a projected 41,000 residents between 2019

(237,438) and 2024 (278,318), according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.

The hospital also filed a Certificate of Need application in late November to convert 16 existing rooms to be used for obstetrical patients in the hospital’s Woman’s Center and meet projected patient demands for 2024.

The expansion will be the second to raise the height of the hospital in recent years after a project to bring the hospital from five to eight stories was completed in 2016.

“For the last 20 years, we really have not had a day without growth and construction at the hospital,” Jackson said at the meeting. “I have about four or five construction hats, and I wear them religiously because I stay on construction sites a lot.”

In early November, Northside Forsyth opened six new operating rooms at the hospital’s Center for Advanced Surgical Technology, adding supports for robotic, neuro, orthopedic and spine surgeries.

Since opening, more than 400 surgeries have taken place in the new ORs, according to hospital officials.

Jackson said current and past improvements have been designed with patients and employees in mind, such as giving space for families in all rooms as well as providing staff places to privately meet with coworkers and providing requests to make their working lives easier.

At Digital Ignition, Jackson told the crowd about how the hospital had evolved its care in recent decades and how new technology was constantly being used.

“One of the things that we’ve seen that’s really helped us dramatically over the last 10 or so years but more dramatically in the last 2.5-3 years is the use of analytics. It’s used at the bedside for an

Photo by Ben Hendren for the Forsyth County News

‘For the last 20 years, we really have not had a day without growth and construction at the hospital.’

-Lynn Jackson, administrator Northside Hospital Forsyth adjunct to make clinical judgments and diagnoses,” Jackson said.

“It helps us sort of decrease the number and severity of patient clinical decline, so it uses a set of clinical data kind of through artificial intelligence to predict what’s going to happen with that patient so we can try to get ahead of that and use our teams to find out what we can do to stop that decline and reverse it.”

Jackson said the hospital has also seen an increased use in robotics, such as machines that help with surgery and a pharmacy robot that has a 99.9% rate of identifying and counting correct prescriptions.

The improvements, she said, aren’t only meant to be at the cutting-edge of technology but also to provide the best care possible to patients. Jackson said

Northside performed more total joint replacements than any other hospital in the southeast and had the lowest length of stay of any hospital in the country.

Jackson said when she started at Northside as a nurse, patients having cataract surgery would recover for five days in the hospital and joked the procedure could nearly be done as a drivethru today.

“Patients just don’t stay very long at the hospital, but for the time they’re there, they’re very acutely ill, and we pack a lot into a very short period of time and spend a lot of time with the families,” she said. “We really focused our construction on getting a lot of feedback from staff about what works, what doesn’t work. I think that’s why our facility really is very patient-friendly, as well as very staff friendly to work in.”

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6D | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

H E A LT H & E D U C AT I O N

2020

How diverse are Forsyth County schools?

By Alexander Popp FCN regional staff

A large map of the world once hung on the wall of Lakeside Middle School in south Forsyth.

Underneath the words, “From around the world we are connected by Lakeside,” the map was speckled with hundreds of gold stars from Georgia to South Korea, each representing the parts of the world where students or families came from.

Lakeside Middle isn’t alone in its student diversity. Over the last 10 years, Forsyth County school officials say that the system and county has become the premier place to come to for a quality education, drawing a population of highly motivated students from 124 different countries.

Enrollment records for the 2018-19 school year show that of the Forsyth County school system’s 38 brick and mortar schools, 15 have student populations that are majority-minority, where the number of white students is less than the combined number of Hispanic, American Indian, Asian and African American students.

According to school system Director of Communications Jennifer Caracciolo, the demographic shift is due in large part to an influx of Asian Indian families that have steadily come to Forsyth County over the last few years.

Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in June showed that Forsyth County had the fastest-growing Asian population in the country between 2017 and 2018 among counties with a total population of 20,000 or more with an increase of 11.5% (3,408) in residents who identify as Asian.

But even before this shift, Caracciolo says that the system had already started adapting to the changing face of the county about 20 years ago, when more and more Hispanic families began coming to the county.

Their interactions and experi-

ences with a new population of Hispanic students and families led them to create an international “transition” center for the system, she said.

“The transition center allows us to work with families of students that may be English language learners. That’s where we probably have about 20 years of experience working with our English language learners,” she said. “Making sure that we’re supporting their learning, but then also connecting families, too, with resources that they might need.”

When the next demographic shift began in South Forsyth, Caracciolo said that many of their schools were ready for the change.

Eric Ashton, principal at Daves Creek Elementary, says that over the 13 years he has led the school in south Forsyth, he has seen the school’s demographic completely flip from about 93% white students to 86% Asian-Indian students, based on projections for the coming year.

When he started at the school, their attendance radius was about 13 miles, but over the years the South Forsyth community has steadily grown denser. Now their attendance zone is about 1.5 miles.

“We almost could have walked out and played on Melody Mizer Lane when I first came,” Ashton said. “But we’ve redistricted probably seven or eight times since I’ve been here.”

Caracciolo said that schools like Daves Creek, Johns Creek and Sharon Elementary were “early adopters” when the shift began occurring, offering inclusive community events for the growing population of diverse students.

“They were one of our first few schools to start cultural diversity night, where students and their families can come in and share about their culture,” she said. “That was their way of inviting in our families and making them part of the school

Photo courtesy of the Forsyth County School System

community.”

In the wake of those successful events, she said that other schools began to take part, welcoming in their own community and learning more about them.

But with the shifting demographics, the school system has also had its fair share of challenges to overcome, like communication, differences in cultural norms and increased demands by school staff that have more students and greater expectations.

The system partly addressed these challenges by partnering with the University of North Georgia (UNG) to provide school administrators and school staff throughout the county with a series of support programs on diversity and inclusivity.

“We want to be respectful, we want to be open and the last thing we want to do is insult anyone … It’s a learning process,” she said. “Those speakers in partnership with UNG really allowed us to provide much needed training for our staff.”

Ashton said that at Daves Creek the trainings from UNG helped his staff greatly, improving their ability to do things like asking for parent volunteers and PTA members in the Asian Indian community which had been a struggle before.

By understanding the culture

of the community, he said that they were able to ask the right way and get better results.

“Our participation has gone up significantly since,” he said.

“A big part of our philosophy is building relationships with those students,” Caracciolo said. “And to build those relationships you have to understand, what is their family life like, what are their cultural practices, what are their religious practices, so you can support them and make them feel that they are supported.”

Now that the school system has worked out how vital the relationship between understanding culture and forming a relationship is, that support, training and extra thought is hardwired into how they build school communities, she said.

In the system’s most recent strategic plan, which will be implemented this school year, Caracciolo said that a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan is part of the system’s main goal areas and will be carried out system-wide.

But according to Caracciolo, the system has already seen success with a school that immediately opened with a very diverse student body: Denmark High School, which opened nearly a year ago with a fairly even split between white and minority students (20% Hispanic, 24% Asian, 8% Black and 45% White).

Denmark Principal Heather Gordy said that even before the school opened they formed a “vertical team” of seven schools that are considered part of the Denmark Community of Schools. Administrators of each school have proactive conversations and invite families in the community to Denmark to have conversations with their community.

“I had the opportunity to really put a beginning focus on our culture and climate,” Gordy said. ”I really focused last year on the relationship piece of opening a new school … and really emphasizing the importance of building those positive relationships, not only with the kids, but also with their parents and our community.”

With more than 80 different clubs including DECA, FCA, Muslim Student Organization and HOSA inside the school and the opportunities that a local school counsel will bring in the coming year, Gordy said that Denmark is bursting with opportunities for students and families of every race or ethnicity.

“My major goal here is to have a very inclusive environment within our school building, so that we have opportunities built in for kids and they can be very involved,” Gordy said.

Even though they recognize the importance of identifying and celebrating the cultural differences of their students, both Gordy and Ashton said that educationally speaking, race and culture don’t really affect what they do — good teaching is still good teaching.

“When you are in the world of education, kids are what you do, teaching kids is what we do every day … regardless of where they come from,” Gordy said. “Walk into our cafeteria and you’ll see that we are diverse and our kids don’t seem to notice or care.”

What to know about county’s next high school in north Forsyth East Forsyth to open fall 2021

By Alexander Popp FCN regional staff

After more than a decade of waiting and planning, officials marked the start of construction on Forsyth County’s seventh traditional high school, East Forsyth High.

Last spring, project stakeholders and officials from the Forsyth County Schools system met at East Forsyth’s future home off Jot Em Down Road and Claude Martin Drive in northeast Forsyth to turn some dirt and officially kick off the construction process with a groundbreaking ceremony.

“I think that the people of north Forsyth have been excited for a long time, and they’ve been waiting on this,” District 4 Representative Darla Light said at the ceremony. “I believe that it’s going to live up to the expectations and exceed them, I really do.”

East Forsyth’s land, according to school officials, was originally purchased in the early 2000s, but the project was tabled due to the severity of the Great Recession that started in 2007.

In March 2019, the Forsyth County Board of Education approved an $85 million contract with Carroll Daniel Construction for construction of the new

school which expected to open its doors in the fall of 2021.

Like the county’s other traditional high schools, East Forsyth is set to accommodate about 2,125 students with room to add additional facilities as the area grows.

According to Jennifer Caracciolo, director of communications for Forsyth County Schools, East Forsyth is projected to open with grades 9-11 and a starting enrollment similar to when Denmark opened this school year.

She said that the school is projected to relieve student populations at North Forsyth and Forsyth Central high schools, but so far the system has not entered discussions over how district lines in those areas will change.

Caracciolo said that the design of East Forsyth will be similar to that of Denmark, with a navy and orange color scheme unique to the new school.

East Forsyth’s colors and mascot, the Broncos, were chosen by the county’s high school principals earlier in the

2018-19 school year, she said.

“The whole process that we went through is the exact process that we used for Denmark; the high school principals selected the colors and then they also selected the mascot,” Caracciolo said at the ceremony on Tuesday. “They decided to pick the broncos for the mascot in honor of the Bennett Park Broncos.”

The Bennett Park Broncos, according to Caracciolo, was a little league football team that once operated out of the north Forsyth park.

Through the process of building other local schools, Caracciolo said they learned to select colors and mascots as early as possible so that the school can be built with those themes in mind.

“We now know that we have to have the school colors selected prior to the contract being approved, because you don’t want to have a situation like we had a Liberty Middle School, where the school interior colors did not match the school colors and then we had to go

back and repaint,” she said. “School colors are very important to the school culture, so we have to have those done and selected while we’re working with the architect.”

One unique design element of East Forsyth design will be a central courtyard with spots of turf and a sunken seating area to create a gathering space for students.

The new high school will offer a full array of programs and extracurricular opportunities like other schools in the county, but according to Caracciolo, East Forsyth is also set to have an entirely new and unique career development program, referred to as “HGTV,” like the popular television channel for home improvement and real estate shows.

She said that the “HGTV” career development area will include elements of interior design, marketing, design, engineering, construction and audio/ video production and will feature a number of different lab spaces for the different elements.

In addition to the “HGTV” career development area, Caracciolo said that they also have preliminary plans for East Forsyth to contain a small onsite child care center, which will be operated under teacher supervision by students of the school’s early childhood education pathway.

School district breaks ground on $96 million in projects From staff reports

On Tuesday, Nov. 19, school officials held groundbreaking ceremonies for Hendricks Middle School and the Forsyth County Arts and Learning Center (FOCAL Center) and nearby Academy for Creative Education (ACE).

Located off Hyde Road, Hendricks Middle School is scheduled to open in 2020 and alleviate overcrowding at Liberty, Otwell and Vickery Creek middle schools. The 216,000-square-foot building will accommodate 1,500 students and cost $40,639,536.

The FOCAL Center and Academy for Creative Education will be located behind

the Forsyth County Board of Education headquarters off Dahlonega Highway.

The FOCAL Center will be the school district’s central performing arts facility. Plans call for an 1,800-seat main theater, black box theatre, concessions, dressing rooms and storage.

The new Academy for Creative Education will house the system’s alternative learning programs: Gateway Academy, Forsyth Academy and Forsyth Virtual Academy.

FOCAL Center is expected to be mostly complete by winter 2021, while ACE is slated to be mostly complete by April 2021 and ready for 2021-22 school year.

The buildings will cost $55,628,250.

Forsyth County Arts and Learning Center (FOCAL Center) and Academy for Creative Education (ACE)

ForsythNews.com | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | 7D

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

H E A LT H & E D U C AT I O N Here are the plans for the proposed Denmark Park

2020

By Kelly Whitmire kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

The Forsyth County Parks and Recreation Board got a look at new plans for a south Forsyth park, which will feature pickleball courts, trails and four rectangular fields, which will include two cricket pitches.

Earlier this month, the board heard an update of the master plan of Denmark Park from officials with Woolpert Inc., and held a public hearing to give residents a chance to give their thoughts on the project.

The park is set to be built on Mullinax Road across from Denmark High School.

The park is proposed with two entrances — one with a signalized intersection on Mullinax Road across from the high school and another with a roundabout on Windy Hill Road — and will include a multi-court complex, the historic Dr. Denmark clinic (the namesake of the park and school), a passive picnic area, a large shelter pavilion, a multi-sport field complex, a dog park

and more than two miles of trails.

The multi-court complex, located on the west side of the park, will include 10 outdoor pickleball courts and three halfcourts for basketball and a covered multi-sport pavilion with eight pickleball or four half-court basketball along with restrooms.

“There could be other uses,” said Katie Thayer with Woolpert. “Summer programs ran by parks and rec, kind of just a large outdoor space for multiple activi-

ties, and it’s connected in the front there to restrooms, concession, storage.”

A handful of speakers at the meeting were in support of the pickleball courts, including Allen Hicks.

“This emphasis on the pickleball courts will be great for the growth of pickleball in Forsyth County but also for north Atlanta,” he said.

For the multi-sport field complex, on the eastern side of the park, four synthetic turf rectangular fields will be built with

two 400-foot-diameter cricket court fields between each cluster of two fields.

“I’ve never been so excited to see two circles on a map followed by the statement that said ‘and a cricket pitch in the middle.’ That was music to my ears,” said Karun Krishnaswami, with the Atlanta Cricket League. “Having said that, we really do appreciate accommodating us here. I was in a conversation yesterday and told … one in three students at Lambert High School happens to be of South Asian or Indian origin, so this is not only for us old guys but the future cricketers coming up.”

The park will also include shelters, natural areas, two sand volleyball courts, playgrounds, an event plaza with a seasonal interactive fountain and more than 500 parking spaces scattered throughout.

In March 2018, Forsyth County Commissioners approved the purchase of about 57 acres at 500 Windy Hill Drive for $5.9 million from Kay W. Veal and 23 acres on Mullinax Road for about $2.4 million from Mullinax Road, LLC and Jay Land.

Lanierland Park plans approved, new site of Miracle League field

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

New plans have been approved for a north Forsyth park, including plans for the relocation of a special baseball and softball field for players with disabilities.

At a work session in February, Fo r s y t h C o u n t y C o m m i s s i o n e r s approved a new site master plan for Phases 2 and 3 of Lanierland Park, which will include new tennis courts, walking trails and will be the new site of a Miracle League field.

“Lanierland is a beautiful piece of land. We’re excited with what we have out there right now. As we design this, we want to create just an excellent park,” Jim Pryor, the county’s director of parks and recreation. “I think that the plan has done that.”

Pryor said the department had been working with Lose Design to come up with the plans. The work is expected to cost about $16 million.

“We took some of the same facilities and flip-flopped them and moved them around the site until we had what we are presenting to you today,” Pryor said.

“The plan did add some features to the site.”

Lanierland Park was planned in 2014 and opened in 2017.

Some of the new amenities include expanded parking, a roundabout and a fieldhouse for the multi-sport fields.

Phase 2 of the project was expected to bring four baseball fields for players with special needs, as a planned project at Coal Mountain Park meant the facility would have to relocate its Miracle League fields.

“With the village of Coal Mountain coming, there’s going to be a road cutting through Coal Mountain Park, which is going to take a little bit of the park

away and create some issues,” Pryor said. “The Miracle League had asked us to look in the plan for Lanierland, possibly doing a Miracle Field and a new Miracle playground and incorporate that within the baseball complex.”

While the current Miracle League field has a rubberized surface, Pryor said the new field would have synthetic turf, meaning it could be used by players outside of Miracle League.

Another plan that has slightly changed is for a tennis complex at the park.

“This tennis complex will be used by East Forsyth High School for their game matches,” Pryor said. “The original plan has four pods of tennis courts to be put in. Three of those will be for tennis, so that’s six tennis courts, which is ideal for competitive tennis, and the pod on the lower left-hand corner will be for a Pickleball pod.”

Pryor said as crews graded the land, they would make space available for two more potential tennis pods, though those have not yet been planned.

The park will include a 1.5-mile trail around the site along with other connector trails on paved, natural and boardwalk surfaces.

The park is named for a former music park of the same name, which in its heyday hosted famous musicians Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Alabama,

George Jones and many others. The park closed in 2006, and the land was purchased in 2009 by the county with funds from the Parks, Recreation and Green Space Bond.

During the meeting, commissioners also approved a bid for remediation of the park’s “Concerts in the Country” sign, which has stood since its concert days. The bid was awarded to Lang Signs for about $19,000 to be paid out of the beautification funds for District 4.

“I’m looking at it, through a lot of community input, as it being like a historical thing that fits with the [compreh e n s ive ] p l a n ,” s a i d D i s t r i c t 4 Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills, whose father was a partner at the music facility and who previously served as general manager.

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County awards bid for dog park in north Forsyth

By Kelly Whitmire

kwhitmire@forsythnews.com

A new north Forsyth park will be a benefit to both dog lovers and their furry friends.

Forsyth County Commissioners awarded a bid earlier this year worth $850,760 to Zaveri Enterprises for construction of a new dog park across from the Forsyth County Animal Shelter on County Way off Ga. 400.

“I get asked constantly about it,” said District 4 Commissioner Cindy Mills.

“I’ve been asked more about this than I have about just about anything.”

Construction of the park is expected to be completed within 180 days, once construction documents are approved.

The park will include a synthetic turf surface, sunshades and several amenities for dogs to play with.

In addition to a space for dogs, county officials said they hope the park increases adoptions from the shelter.

“While they might not be coming to the animal shelter, they’re going to be right beside it,” said Deputy County manager Tim Merritt. “You won’t hear any more of this, ‘We didn’t know that they had a shelter.’”

Previously, the county had considered allowing visitors to use the restroom at the animal shelter, which was reportedly dropped due to concerns of spreading diseases from the dogs at the park to the shelter.

Instead, a modular restroom facility, similar to those used at Chattahoochee Pointe Park, will be brought in.

“The master plan has been designed to ultimately put a restroom there, so we do have the water stuff out and sewer stuff out and, I believe, the electric stuff out already available,” Merritt said. “We will have a concrete walkway to this area where the restroom is dropped in, so essentially, we’re talking about buying this modular restroom, having it dropped in and connected to utilities.”

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8D | FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS | ForsythNews.com

Sunday, March 29, 2020

PROGRESS

H E A LT H & E D U C AT I O N

2020 SPORTS

Five players with ties to Forsyth County to watch in 2020

By David Roberts

droberts@forsythnews.com

Ethan Hankins, Forsyth Central, Cleveland Indians organization The 6-foot-6 first-round pick of the Cleveland Indians impressed in Class A ball last season, compiling a 2.55 ERA in 13 starts. Hankins dominated at the Low-A level, where he struck out 43 batters across 38 2/3 innings and posted a 1.40 ERA. Hankins, the first Forsyth County player ever taken in the first round, pitched four years at Forsyth Central High School and helped the USA Baseball U-18 team to a WBSC World Cup title. Depending on when the season starts, the 19-year-old top prospect should open the season back at Class A Lake County, but has a realistic shot of finishing the year in Double A.

Hankins

Dakota Chalmers, North Forsyth, Minnesota Twins organization Another hurler, Chalmers played in three different leagues last season but saw his best results in High-A Fort Myers, where he went 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA in five starts, striking out 29 batters across 21 1/3 innings. Chalmers also played in the Arizona Fall League and the Gulf Coast League for the Twins’ rookie ball team. Chalmers, a former ace at North Forsyth High School, underwent Tommy John surgery in early 2018 while with the Oakland Athletics’ farm system, then was traded to the Twins in a deal involving veteran reliever Fernando Rodney. Chalmers boasts swing-and-miss stuff, but will have to get his walk rate down (23 walks in 34 2/3 innings in 2019) before advancing past Class A ball.

The former all-everything Clemson Tiger slugger, Beer played by far the longest season of his professional career in 2019, totaling 613 at-bats in 141 games across four leagues (including the Arizona Fall League). Beer was dealt in the middle of the season by the Houston Astros to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Double-A Southern League, where he initially struggled to Beer the tune of a .205 average and just one home run in 24 games. Still, Beer had such a prolific firsthalf of the season that his yearly totals looked like this: .289 batting average, 130 hits, 26 home runs, 24 doubles and 103 RBIs. Beer earned an invitation to the Diamondbacks’ 2020 spring training, where he hit just .176 (3 for 17), but expect the proven power hitter to bounce back in his first full season in the Diamondbacks’ farm system.

Landon Sims, South Forsyth, Mississippi State

Chalmers

Kyle McCann, Lambert, Oakland Athletics organization McCann crushed the ball in his final season at Georgia Tech in 2019, slugging 23 home runs and driving in 70 runs in 62 games. McCann was drafted in the fourth round by the Oakland Athletics and carried that power into the A’s rookie league, hitting two homers and driving in seven runs in just five games before being promoted to Low-A Vermont. McCann, who was considered the top catcher in the state while at Lambert, struggled in the New York-Pennsylvania League, where he hit just .192 and managed just seven home runs in 55 games. It’s worth reminding, however, that McCann took a ton of swings in 2019, playing 122 games combined between his junior year at Georgia Tech and his first year in the minors. McCann, considered the A’s No. 24 prospect by MLB.com, should be plenty rested by the start of the season.

Seth Beer, Lambert, Arizona Diamondbacks organization

McCann

Sims was nothing short of electric in his final two outings as a true freshman for Mississippi State.

Against Quinnipiac on March 7, Sims fired three nohit innings, striking out five and issuing just one walk. Three days later against Texas Tech, Sims gave up a hit and a run in 2 1/3 innings, but struck out six batters. Sims tallied 23 strikeouts in 13 innings this season working out of the Bulldogs’ bullpen.

Opponents hit just .111 against Sims. Although his season was abbreviated, the former South Forsyth ace did enough to make some noise ahead of the 2020 MLB draft.

Sims

Visit www.forsythnews.com/sports/ for all the latest county sports news @ForsythSports

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