Local & State Headlines

Delays plague Charles Plaza

• Albany’s Bridge House is expected to open later this month.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Eight months since the Ray Charles Plaza opened to the public, delays continue to prolong completion of the riverfront park.

An incomplete drainage system between the statue of Charles and the Flint River and a music system that needs to be reprogrammed have led Albany Tomorrow Inc. to withhold payment to contractors of about $70,000, ATI Construction Manager Kenneth Cribb said.

“We still have some items that need to be changed or corrected,” Cribb told ATI board members at a Wednesday meeting that was one member short of a quorum.

“It just seems like it’s been going on forever,” said Courtney Brinson, an ATI member also serving this year as chairman for the Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Even before Albany hosts the Governor’s Conference on Tourism Sept. 10-12 is the start of the Albany State University football season, Brinson said. ASU’s first home game is Aug. 30.

“Whatever we need to do to get it finished,” he said. The park “is important to a lot of those visitors, and it has to be done.”

ATI wants a contractor to return and reprogram the sound system, which plays Charles hits such as “Georgia on My Mind” to coordinate with the revolving statue of Charles, to turn on and off at certain intervals instead of playing continuously and restart after a power failure, Cribb said.

ATI expects design plans for the drainage system to be complete in about three weeks, he said.

Also upcoming “around Aug. 26” is the grand opening of the remodeled, nearby Bridge House as a visitor center operated by the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Cribb said.

Next week, a miniature version of the Charles statue that was formerly a part of the park will be removed from storage and installed at the Bridge House, he said.

Construction at two other ATI projects, expansions at Albany Civil Rights Institute and Thronateeska Heritage Center, is expected to be complete in September, he said.

A final project slated for later completion is a greenways trail and pedestrian bridge across Philema Road, Cribb said.

ATI, under contract to design and build sales tax-funded attractions with the Albany Dougherty Inner City Authority, has no other funded projects remaining.

With the recent transfer of a $272,455 property at 309 West Oglethorpe Boulevard to the Albany Dougherty Inner City Authority, ATI had assets of $936,205 as of July 31, including $524,661 in accounts receivable and $68,278 in cash, ATI Finance Administrator Shonnie King reported.

The City of Albany recently renewed $150,000 in operational funds for ATI through July 2009, ATI board chairman C.W. Grant said.

“What are we managing with all the city’s money?” board member Jim Wilcox asked.

“You’ll have an answer to that,” Grant said. “The executive committee will be back with a plan for what we’re going to do before then."