Leesburg train depot renovations closer to reality

LEESBURG — The planned renovation of the historic Leesburg Train Depot moved closer to becoming a reality Wednesday night as the Leesburg City Council, at a special called meeting, unanimously accepted an agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation to begin the process of rehabilitating the building’s exterior.

Under the terms of the agreement, the project, which has a $283,275 price tag, will be partially funded by state and federal money with the city making up the difference. Leesburg City Manager Bob Alexander, who has been working on making this project a reality for the past few years, said 80 percent ($226,620) of the funding will come from federal funds administered through GDOT, with the city’s 20 percent portion of $56,655 coming from SPLOST funding.

“We have funds available for our 20 percent,” said Alexander. “We also have funds to cover any overages that may occur.”

The scope of the renovations, which Alexander said is Phase 1 of a multi-phase project, will focus on the exterior of the building, with the intent of restoring the depot to its original condition. The second phase, for which funding will have to be sought, will address the building’s interior.

“It’s just doing the outside of the building, just the shell of the building,” Alexander told the council. “It’s going to be pretty much putting it back to the way it was. It’s going to be wood. This is Phase 1 and we have a Phase 2 after this.”

With funding for the project now in place, Alexander said the next step is to finalize the contract between the city and Fourth Street Design and Construction LLC out of Warwick, which won the job through a competitive bid process.

Because the depot is listed on the national historic registry, design plans had to be approved by that body before the funding agreement could be finalized.

“This has gone through the federal historical people, so it’s designed like it’s supposed to be,” Alexander said. “They’re going to put it back to whatever it’s supposed to be.”

When council member Debra Long inquired about the time frame of the work, Alexander said the renovations should begin fairly soon and take about six months.

“We hope to kind of accelerate this thing and proceed some time in August,” Alexander said. “We do have a schedule here. A date of Aug. 1 was kind of what we were looking at, and I think we’ll be a little short of that. But I say if we get this back from the DOT in another couple of weeks, at a least a week or two, we should have a notice to proceed some time in August.”

Now that the project is moving forward Alexander said the city is also proceeding with a planned ceremony slated for next Thursday at 10 a.m., which will feature remarks from Congressman Sanford Bishop, who was instrumental in helping to secure funding for the project.

“If we sign this thing tonight, we’ll send the proper documents (to the DOT), and we will have a few days before they sign off on this. But we still plan to have our celebration of the depot renovation next Thursday,” said Alexander. “We’re going to have Sanford Bishop talk a little bit. We’ll have Ed Rynders and Greg Kirk. I hope you all can be there.”

Alexander said the project’s architect, Larry Jones of Valdosta-based Ken Rickett and Associates, would also be at the ceremony and could answer any design questions posed by council members.