This story has been updated.

Avondale Estates, GA — The city of Avondale Estates has released its request for proposals for construction of the U.S. 278 complete street project.

The notice was sent to The Champion on Oct. 25 and will be posted next week, but the RFP has been posted on the city’s website.

“We have been given the notice to proceed for the [U.S.] 278 complete street project,” City Manager Patrick Bryant said during the Oct. 25 city commission meeting. “It’s go time.”

He added that the task of directing traffic throughout construction will start soon. The city is working with a consultant to figure out how to properly construct the project and redirect traffic.

“We’re going to try and make the project go as smoothly as humanly possible,” Bryant said.

U.S. 278 is the main drag in Avondale Estates, where it has the names of East College Avenue and North Avondale Road as it runs through the city and its historic downtown.

“It’s a complete street project with the intent of creating a place,” Assistant City Manager Shannon Powell told Decaturish. “It’s safety driven and multimodal.”

The project includes a road diet that will reduce the travel lanes from five to three between Sam’s Crossing and Ashton Place. The length of the project corridor is 1.15 miles.

“It has a 10-foot path that runs along the entire stretch…on the north side of the street and then a landscape strip that runs along the edge of the sidewalk,” Powell said.

There will be some on-street parking. The project also calls for new traffic lights and streetlights, a center median, and a five-foot sidewalk on the south side of the street as well between South Avondale Road and Sam’s Crossing. The city is not planning to touch the abelia hedge as part of the project.

“The traffic signals get upgraded and updated,” Powell said. “All of that timing happens for this project, but the traffic lights are part of an even larger project [and] the state will come back and do their 40 signals up and down that corridor. This is just a small portion of them. They’ll be timed with this project.”

The project will also include repaving U.S. 278, re-striping the road, and consolidating curb cuts.

“It’s intimidating to walk down most of this corridor today, and this should truly address that and make it a place you want to be,” Powell said. “It’s going to connect the community in ways that it has not been in a very long time, maybe if ever.”

The city finished acquiring the rights-of-way needed for the project in August, and the final construction documents were completed in September this year. The bids are due on Nov. 30.

Construction is anticipated to begin in early 2024 and will take about 18 months.

The city is also talking with the Atlanta Regional Commission about potential additional funding for the project.

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