Veterans Park Plan

Pedestrian bridge out, fountain in at Veterans Park

BY BOB PEPALIS

Sandy Springs will keep a large fountain in its Veterans Park design, but an idea to install a pedestrian bridge across Roswell Road linking it to City Springs was rejected as City Council members thought it was too costly.

Councilmembers Tibby DeJulio and John Paulson, who are both veterans, led the discussion during a work session on Sept. 6 in which more members wanted to keep the fountain that would mirror a fountain across Roswell Road in front of the city’s Performing Arts Center.

City staff was instructed to return to Council with optional plans that cut the cost of the fountain or eliminated it in favor of landscaping.

The construction cost for just the fountain was estimated at $1.33 million. Options that would have cut its size in half were estimated to cost $644,724 to $670,233.

Wells said Reeves Young Atkins gave the city a rough estimate for a pedestrian bridge as between $4 million and $7 million. In addition to the cost, the potential need to raise two Georgia Power transmission poles would add to the cost and delay the city’s Johnson Ferry Road at Mount Vernon Highway TSPLOST improvement project by at least a year and a half.

“I think the pedestrian bridge is wasting 4 to $7 million. I think of myself and a lot of other veterans who have bad knees who would not be using that original whole lot,” DeJulio said.

Paulson agreed with DeJulio.

“This original plan was always to make these fountains balanced on both sides of Roswell Road,” Paulson said. “And I think that’s really the statement that we’re trying to make. and I want to make sure we were true to that statement that was literally we’ve been talking about this for eight or nine years.” A rendering of the fountain at Veterans Park.

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