progress 2016 gwinnettdailypost.com

SECTION C • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016

ENVISION Jimmy Carter Boulevard at

Brook Hollow Parkway is the

epicenter of industry...”

INVENT Satellite at

Sugarloaf is where Gwinnett

comes to be entertained...”

PICTURE Downtown

Lilburn has never looked better or

busier... Highway 29 is a major

Main Street...”

VISUALIZELawrenceville

is a college town where Georgia Gwinnett and downtown are

woven together...”

IMAGINEGWINNETT

2040

‘‘

‘‘

‘‘

‘‘A dispatch from

Gwinnett’s projected future

Today, we look back on the challenges and trials of one bustling street to the next, when one new family moved in after the other and knotted rounds of road work to let the lumbering mass travel gave way to the beginnings of public rail and “walk-ability.” Gwinnett County is not so much a shadow of its former self now, in the year 2040, as it is an offspring — maybe a set of twins.

As predicted, it’s Georgia’s most populous county, with some 1.5 million people crammed into the same 437 acres that held fewer than 900,000 in 2016. The buildings are taller, the scene more lively and the profile higher. Not too long ago this land was mostly wild forest, then it was quaint suburbia, then miles of sprawl — then this.

Before we go over exactly what this looks like it’s helpful to go back to when the predictions that preceded it came.

On Jan. 30, 2016, politicians, commu-nity leaders and others filed into the 1818 Club at the Gwinnett Chamber building in Duluth. They crowded at round tables and shared a meal as Atlanta Regional Commission board Chairman Kerry

Armstrong gave his State of the Region address.

Armstrong, bespectacled, in a red and white tie, stood behind a podium washed in daylight from a window at the center, near the intersection of Sugarloaf Parkway and Satellite Boulevard. There, he let slip the projection that Gwinnett would surpass mighty Fulton for the state population title by 2040.

“The growth is exciting,” then-Gwin-nett County Administrator Glenn Ste-phens remarked afterward.

Looking back now that 2040 has ar-rived, the location of Armstrong’s speech was interesting.

At the corner of Sugarloaf Parkway and Satellite Boulevard, now stands a busy entertainment district crowded with intentionally dense housing, shops, comedy clubs and restaurants. Concertgo-ers come to take in shows at the Infinite Energy Center and mill about before and after, maybe take a break for a what we’ve taken to calling a “virtual-reality adventure.”

Planners had foreseen a demand for such development and paved the way. They also thought to add new seats to the

By Joshua sharpejoshua.sharpe@gwinnettdailypost.com

See FUTURE, Page 2C

progress 20162C SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 • gwinnettdailypost.com

Future

center’s arena and space for exhibits and meetings.

They dreamed to make a “town center” at the heart of Gwinnett, where folks could “come early and stay late.”

The visitors arrive to the district on steady streams of public buses, or by self-driv-ing cars, or by bicycles, and they travel on foot through the district.

The county has, after de-cade upon decade of debate, the beginnings of rail transit into the Norcross area.

As University of Georgia professor Jack Crowley noted in 2016, Gwinnett faced a choice.

“Gwinnett will have some form of fixed” rail transpor-tation “or it will congestion like it never believed,” said the urban planning and design professor, a former developer who had already been watching the situation for 20 years. “You can have one or the other.”

“I’m not a gambler,” Georgia State University professor Joseph Hacker said in 2016.

But he felt it a safe bet Gwinnett County would at least have rail coming up from Doraville, though he knew there could be chal-lenges, primarily funding, and he knew such projects always take a very long time.

Charlotte Nash, who was the county commission chairwoman in 2016, fo-cused on other things as she foretold the county’s future in her State of the County address that year.

Close your eyes, she said to the crowd, and many did.

”In your mind,” said Nash, speaking at the Infi-nite Energy Center, “move 24 years into the future. Gwinnett’s population will

exceed 1.5 million people. Technology has advanced and business and society have adjusted. Today’s infant is a young profes-sional.”

She sent the attendees down to Norcross, where the old OFS plant off Jimmy Carter Boulevard is the Atlanta Media Campus, the anchor to something of a new little “Hollywood.” They make movies there, and people come to visit the redeveloped area to catch a glimpse of stars in town.

She predicted the bustle of the revamped downtown Lilburn, the international business hub in the Gwinnett Place area and the “college town” around Lawrencev-ille’s Georgia Gwinnett Col-lege. She also expected the biomedical industry that’s grown along U.S. Highway 78 as firms seek cheaper land still near Emory Uni-versity and the Centers for Disease Control.

Gwinnett County’s servic-es, naturally, has expanded.

The school district has added new schools to bring extra students in the system, which had already for de-cades been Georgia’s largest. There also are new police and fire stations.

The expansions were planned years ago.

Many spoke of the needs and of how the county could be in trouble if it didn’t pay attention to the tide.

“The decisions we make today affect tomorrow’s Gwinnett,” Nash said back in that 2016 speech. “We have to continue dreaming dreams about tomorrow and what can be accomplished.”

Staff writers Curt Yeomans and Katie Morris contrib-uted reporting.

•From Page 1CNeed for new fire stations, firefighters

The idea of growth isn’t news to Gwinnett County Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

The agency was swelling for years and years before the Atlanta Regional Com-mission projected the county would become Georgia’s largest in the next quarter of a century.

Since 1997, 10 new fire stations have graced Gwin-nett streets; eight others have been relocated. This is thanks, officials will tell you, to special sales tax revenues that have allowed those pull-ing the purse strings to focus fire-district tax revenues

on hiring and training new firefighters.

But leaders know there is more work to be done, said Capt. Tommy Rutledge.

“With the anticipated growth of the county over the next two decades and beyond, there will no doubt

be a need for well-equipped fire stations and superbly trained fire and emergency medical services response personnel,” the department spokesman said.

A new station, the 31st, opens this year on Collins Hill Road, near Georgia

Gwinnett College. Station 10 is meanwhile being moved to an expanded location on Rock Spring Road. The county also has a three-bay building that can be used as a fire station when needed.

As personnel goes, the agency has an “authorized strength” of 898. Only 835 firefighter positions are filled.

More than half of them are also paramedics, the oth-ers EMTs. Medical services are a big part of the agency’s duties. In 2015, for instance, the department responded to 74,497 emergency incidents, with 75 percent being medi-cal related.

With “the future in mind,” officials have bet on train-ing, building a fire academy complex. It allows personnel to practice in a “real-world environment,” complete with medical labs for perfecting techniques, and interactive props.

But how many firefighters will pass through in coming years?

The answer, according to Rutledge, is hard to say, as are other stats on how the department will meet the challenges of 2040. There are many factors to consider.

“The exact number of personnel and facilities will have to be determined over time,” he said.

By Joshua sharpejoshua.sharpe @gwinnettdailypost.com

Training is among the ways the Gwinnett County fire department plans to be ready for the county’s growth. Here, firefighters are shown during rappel-ling training in 2015. (Spe-cial Photo)

402995-

Gwinnett Daily Post presents

Saturday, June 4 | Infinite Energy Forum

Gwinnett is growing to be the largest county in the state...

and so is the population of

our Boomers and Seniors!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

to exhibit or attend

www.GenerationsExpo.comContact Generations@scompapers.com

progress 2016SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 3C •gwinnettdailypost.com

Police, sheriff’s office prepare for Gwinnett growth

Law enforcement in Gwinnett County is trying to keep a finger on the pulse of the community to see what the future might hold. There is much uncertainty on that front, but what’s clear is that both the county police de-partment and sheriff’s office are preparing for inevitable expansion.

By 2040, the year the Atlanta Regional Commis-sion reckons Gwinnett will become Georgia’s most pop-ulous county, these agencies doubtlessly will need more personnel.

“Law enforcement is very manpower driven,” observed Deputy Shannon Volkodav, spokeswoman for the sher-iff’s office.

And, as Gwinnett Police Chief Butch Ayers notes, “More officers mean addi-tional vehicles and equip-ment.” It also means larger, or at least more, facilities.

The next project on Gwinnett PD’s list is to build and staff a sixth pre-cinct, which will be located

next to Bay Creek Park near Grayson. Leadership of the force, which soon will be authorized to have nearly 800 officers, also is con-sidering future plans for a Special Operations Precinct and “potential headquar-ters,” Ayers said.

The chief said, “Gwinnett County citizens’ support of SPLOST has been critical, and will continue to be so, to the ability of GCPD to provide effective services to

our citizens.” He’s referring to voter-approved special sales tax.

Over at the sheriff’s of-fice, leaders are evaluating an increase in personnel due to an expansion of the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Center, which is adding more court-rooms. The sheriff’s office is in charge of security at the Lawrenceville facility, as well as the jail.

There aren’t any plans in

the works to expand the jail at the moment.

But Volkodav figures the sheriff’s office could real-istically end up with about 1,000 sworn and civilian positions, if a jail expansion and other factors called for more resources. It now has 744.

“While technology can help with efficient op-erations,” she said, “law enforcement officers will always be needed to investi-

gate, make arrests, supervise inmates, serve civil sum-mons, transport inmates and provide security, for instance.”

For Ayers, it’s too soon to say how many officers the police force could have when Gwinnett overtakes long-mighty Fulton County in population. There are many things to consider, he said, including potential changes in the boundaries of cities in Gwinnett.

Cities here do enjoy growing, other than self-loathing Rest Haven, which will probably be a distant, crumpled memory long since rolled into the proud city of Buford by 2040.

The city of Snellville, for one, has recently been kicking around the idea of adding more area for devel-opment. The city has its own police force.

That notwithstanding, projections call for a mas-sive increase in population for all the areas GCPD serves, which includes all unincorporated land and ev-ery city expect for Snellville, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Suwanee and Norcross.

Ayers acknowledged the growth would bring difficul-ties, but he remains opti-mistic that the department can continue its mission of “community policing” even with more residents.

Technology might help, he said.

“As we move into the future, we will continually assess our growth needs to ensure that we can continue to provide quality law en-forcement services.”

By Joshua sharpejoshua.sharpe @gwinnettdailypost.com

Gwinnett politicians expected to be Democrats in the future

Imagine a Gwinnett County where Democrats hold virtually every seat on the County Commission, and many, if not all, of its legislative seats.

That will likely be the political reality in the county by 2040.

Gwinnett County has traditionally been a Repub-lican stronghold, but it is shifting toward the Demo-crats, said Charles Bullock, the Richard B. Russell Chair in Political Science at University of Georgia. Bullock, a noted expert in Georgia politics, said it is part of a shift that is also going on across the rest of metro Atlanta.

“Fulton County, DeKalb County and Clayton Coun-ty have been the traditional Democratic base (in metro Atlanta), but then Rock-dale, Newton and Douglas flipped to the Democrats and Henry County recently switched as well,” Bullock said. “Cobb County will also go that way eventu-ally, but Gwinnett will get there first.”

Bullock predicted Gwin-nett would flip to being a “Blue County” sometime around the early to mid-2020s. Under a scenario he laid out, few Republicans may still be in office by 2030, which is around the time when Gwinnett is expected to surpass Fulton County to become the most populated county in metro Atlanta.

“Some of the incumbent Republicans will keep get-ting elected, mainly based on name recognition, but as seats become open, they will likely be won by Democrats,” Bullock said.

In other words, a Repub-lican officeholder in Gwin-nett County could be a rare occurrence in 2040.

So far, any signs at the voting box that a switch in the county’s predominant political party might be coming has been limited to the denser, more urban and diverse areas in south-western Gwinnett. That is where Democrats have already won some legisla-tive seats in the Norcross, Peachtree Corners and Tucker area, and upward toward Duluth and Law-renceville.

Republicans still heavily outweigh Democrats in the Gwinnett Legislative Delegation, but Gwinnett

County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Shealey sees it a sign that politics in the county is becoming more even between the major parties.

“We’re starting to get a balance between Republi-cans and Democrats right now,” he said.

Gwinnett Democrats are keeping their focus on local seats, though, as Shealey said getting a bal-ance between the parties in the county is a key goal at this point. From there, they can focus on getting Gwinnettians to support Democrats for the bigger seats, such as governor or president.

“If we can grow our numbers, we should start to be able to compete in all races in the future,” Shealey said. “Right now, we’re working hard to get the Democratic base built up.”

There are some offices, such as sheriff, where a Republican incumbent has regularly won re-election without opposition from a Democrat.

In 2012, County Com-mission Chairwoman Charlotte Nash won her first full term to her office without a Democratic challenger, despite the fact that she’d been in office for only a year. That won’t be the case this year, however, as one Democrat, Jack Snyder, already has an-nounced plans to challenge Nash in the November general election.

Time will tell if other Democrats decide to jump into the chairman’s race, but that question will be answered when candidate qualifying is held the week of March 7.

“If we can get some bal-ance and some representa-tion, that would be tremen-dous,” Shealey said.

Don’t count the Repub-licans out just yet, though. Shealey’s counterpart in the Gwinnett County Republican Party, Richard Carithers, has said in the past that, despite the belief that a shift is taking place, his party is still a force to be reckoned with locally with a “huge voting block” that comes out for elec-tions.

Carithers could not be reached for comment for this article.

A switch to “Blue County” status could mean a few things for Gwinnett County. First, although officeholders from both

parties agree transportation is an issue, Democratic officeholders, as well as Snyder as a candidate, have been vocal about the transit issue, and particu-larly MARTA.

State Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth, has introduced a bill calling on county commissioners to hold a community dialog on MARTA and to set a refer-endum if the feedback they receive supports the county joining the metro area transit system. His fellow Gwinnett Democrats in the House have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, but it lacks local Republican support.

Secondly, as the Demo-cratic base grows in metro Atlanta, it increases the chances of a Democrat from the area getting elected as governor.

Third, Democrats will likely still be a minority in both chambers of the General Assembly when the switch finally happens in the county. That will mean the loss of some influence for the county in the General Assembly at first, but as Democrats gain more and more metro area districts, they could come back into power.

The Republicans’ cur-rent domination of state politics is still far less than a quarter of a century old, after all.

A takeover of one or both houses of the state legislature would put Gwinnett in a prime posi-tion to regain some leader-ship positions and clout under the Gold Dome.

“If these Democrats con-tinue to get elected, they will be given seniority, and then they would be given committee chairmanships (when Democrats control the legislature), and that would give you some influ-ence,” Bullock said.

Bullock said it is pos-sible for new Republican candidates could get elect-ed after the switch happens, but he added that it would require some changes in thinking on some issues to appeal to a broader, more diverse audience.

“Gwinnett’s popula-tion is also become more diverse, and Republicans in Georgia have not had great success in the past at getting votes from anyone other than whites,” Bullock said. “Republicans will need to come up with ways to reach out to minority groups.”

By Curt yeomanscurt.yeomans @gwinnettdailypost.com

Collaboration, engagement vital for nonprofits in county’s growth

When it comes to helping members of the Gwinnett community who are in need, collaboration is key.

“One thing that Gwinnett is outstandingly known for is its ability to collaborate not just with nonprofits but with corporations and with organizations,” said Regina Miller, associate director of Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Ser-vices. “Do we all see eye to eye all the time? No, but is there that sense of com-munity that’s broader than what you would see in other places? Oh, yeah.”

In light of Atlanta Region-al Commission’s projection that the county’s population will reach 1.5 million people by 2040, that village mental-ity becomes even more vital, Miller said.

“I think as we see the col-laboration and the growth, the two are going to con-tinue to go hand in hand,” she said.

Another important strat-egy moving forward is for members of the community and organizations to work together to make a collective impact, according to Miller.

“I think we’re going to see more people react and get involved,” she said, “I think you’re going to start to see people have more of a long-term outreach effort because I think everyone is realizing that as govern-ment services change and medical services change, it is going to go back to that village concept of you have to help your neighbor.”

Miller said the county’s senior population, which has been growing steadily, could see an explosion over

the next few years as baby boomers begin to reach that 60-plus age mark. Accord-ing to data collected by the coalition, Gwinnett’s senior population could exceed the county’s school age, 5 to 19, population.

However, this up-and-coming population will be composed of active seniors looking to become more involved in bettering their community.

“We have already seen an increase in our leadership program. We’ve seen an in-crease in (senior) volunteers who have approached us. These are seniors who want to do something,” Miller said. “I think what you’re going to see is that basis of education, intellect and wis-dom compact in a different mindset of giving.”

Channeling this eager-ness to be involved will grow more and more important in caring for the expanding, and aging, popu-lation. Miller predicts this will inspire new initiatives driven towards engaging the average member of the community, who are eager to not just volunteer but are also “engaged in giving the ideas.”

That includes the mil-lennial generation which is beginning to make its own impact on service by incorporating technology and social media.

“I think typically they get stereotyped as being kind of aloof and indifferent, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think instead you’re seeing a different kind of engage-ment from them,” Miller said. “What’s exciting about these population increases is that you have the millenni-als who are going to be big, and you have the seniors, too.

“You have two very dif-ferent kind of volunteers and efforts, and I think somehow those two are going to marry the genera-tional gap and have more engagement.”

As Gwinnett’s population grows, Miller predicts that persisting issues surround-ing poverty, food scarcity and housing could grow. The number of students receiving free and reduced lunch in Gwinnett grew by 10 percent from 2008 to 2014, according to coalition data, and that trend could continue.

Another ongoing struggle is the fact that there were 1,483 people who were found to be homeless or precariously housed in Gwinnett as of last Octo-ber. Many of them live in extended stay motels or with friends and family, Miller said. Since the issue has been identified, research is being done to better un-derstand the homelessness situation and eventually develop a plan.

“I do think people realize that this number will start to rise if it is not addressed,” Miller said.

Community leaders will also be keeping an eye on the number of seniors living in poverty and growing population of veterans, many of which are in need of assistance with health care, employment and hous-ing.

Over the next several years, nonprofits will begin to emerge in response to the larger population and potentially higher number of issues needing to be ad-dressed.

“I see growth there and I see the current nonprof-its doing what they can to expand,” Miller said.

By Katie morris

katie.morris @gwinnettdailypost.com

John Butler pulls a Winn-

Dixie shop-ping cart out

of Jackson Creek near

Lucky Shoals Park dur-

ing the 2014 Great Days of Service

on Saturday in Norcross.

Butler was the team

leader for the group cleaning

around the creek, which

included high school

students and members of

a rotary club. (File Photo)

There are no plans at the moment to expand the county jail as Gwin-nett grows, but there could be by the time the county is projected to be Georgia’s most popu-lous county by 2040. (File Photo)

progress 20164C SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 • gwinnettdailypost.com

Gwinnett leaders planning expansion, redevelopment of Infinite Energy Center

Imagine coming to the Infinite Energy Arena to see your favorite musi-cian and arriving early so you can tailgate alongside other fans on a large green space.

Or maybe you’d rather walk to the entertainment district situated across from the Infinite Energy Forum to eat at one of the restaurants or browse through the shops before the show. Perhaps you’d rather stay late after the show and eat a late eve-ning meal then walk over to your room at the high-rise Marriott hotel that’s attached to the Forum.

By the year 2040, when Gwinnett’s population is projected to exceed 1.5 million people, these fan-tasies could be realities.

Explore Gwinnett lead-ers have been working on a long-term master plan that calls for the Infinite Energy Center and the surrounding area to be redeveloped. The 30-year plan was created 20 years ago and has been evolving ever since, according to Explore Gwinnett Execu-tive Director Lisa Anders. While there are key components to the plan, nothing is set in stone and proposed ideas could be reimaged in the years to come.

The master plan in-cludes a four-star, full-service Marriott hotel that’s set to be built at the convention center and will bridge the center’s

conference and event spaces. Other proposed ideas include residential housing, a green space with an amphitheater, expanding the conference center and adding con-cert seating to the Arena, increasing its capacity to between 14,000 and 15,000.

The proposals also include expanding the Arena’s lobby club space and including a waiting area as well as expanding club-level spaces.

One of the master plan’s key components is to create a walkable en-tertainment district across from the Infinite Energy Forum that offers eateries and shops, said Anders.

The idea is to create a

place where residents can “Come Early and Stay Late.” Currently, concert-goers drive to the Arena, park and attend the show. If you want to eat at a res-taurant before the show, typically you have to drive to one of the nearby establishments.

“Our vision is if there’s a Carrie Underwood concert, you can come early and walk down and have food or a drink and lengthen the experience,” Anders said.

Another important element is the proposed parking decks with ground level shops and restaurants that will re-place the current parking lots.

“In order to accomplish

the vision of the master plan; in order to utilize what’s currently parking space, surface parking, to either build the residen-tial component or have amphitheater space, we’re essentially going to take from what is now surface parking and repurpose it,” Anders said. “So we’re going to have to replace it because we can’t afford to lose any parking.”

The source of funding for the redevelopment and expansion is still under discussion, but Anders said there are private and public components to the overall project.

She said the next step in the process is to put out a request for qualifications to private

developers. Once inter-ested developers respond, leaders will then narrow the number down and move on to the proposal process.

“We think it’s a pretty big step and we do think there’s a lot of inter-est in it,” Anders said. “It’s prime real estate and there’s a great op-portunity for someone. There is already a built-in audience locally. There’s an even bigger audience built in from a visitation perspective. The complex had over a million people go through it last year, so that’s a pretty strong base to start off with.”

The center’s expansion and redevelopment is timely for Gwinnett’s ex-

pected growth and should help to accommodate that larger population, creat-ing a town center in the heart of the county that offers residential housing alongside entertainment and pushes walkability in the area.

Anders said a ways down there road there’s even the possibility of connected the Infinite Energy Center with nearby destinations like Sugarloaf Mills and the 75,000-square-foot Sugarloaf Market project that’s under development.

The Infinite Energy Center is a major eco-nomic generator for the county, Anders said, and at its current size the exhibit hall and meeting space competes for 20 percent of the meetings market because that’s what the space will ac-commodate.

If the space is expand-ed from 50,000 square feet to 125,000 square feet, it will allow the center to compete for 80 percent of the meetings market, she said.

According to Anders, a recent economic impact study for the conven-tion center conducted by Georgia Tech showed that at its current size its impact was around $173 million a year.

“If you double that, the possibilities are so strong,” Anders said. “For its size it’s a very, very successful convention center, and we just know that we have so much more opportunity.”

By Katie Morriskatie.morris @gwinnettdailypost.com

County, region planning now for future transportation needs

Gwinnett County is at a crossroads as far as trans-portation is concerned.

Does it build more roads to accommodate the growth that is expected to come over the next 24 years? Is an expansion of transit, and possibly joining MARTA, a better way to go? Are more bike paths and pedestrian walkways, such as side-walks, needed?

All of that remains to be seen, but one thing Gwinnett County officials universally agree on is that transportation will need to be addressed by 2040. That’s because, as county Director of Transportation Alan Chapman put it during a recent meeting with com-missioners to discuss the plan, “transportation really is about quality of life.”

“A lot has happened in the last seven or eight years (since the last update to the plan) and we’ve got to get that baseline for where we are now so we can project into the future,” Chapman told the commissioners.

How to address this issue is a question county officials are trying to find answers to in the present as they work on a major update to their Comprehensive Transporta-tion Plan.

The theme of that update is Destination 2040, looking forward to a time when the county’s population will be nearly twice what it now is. The plan will map out how the county’s transportation system may develop over the next 24 years. That in-cludes roads, traffic signals, bridges, transit, Briscoe Field airport, pedestrian pathways, railroads and bike trails.

“Right now, transporta-tion is the issue that we’re at a point of inflection in terms of how we grapple with how we deal with transpor-tation going forward, and that’s one of the reasons

why the Comprehensive Transportation Plan update is so critical,” Gwinnett Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Nash told the Daily Post staff during a meeting in January.

The update transportation plan isn’t expected to be ready until next year, but it’s not stopping some officials and residents from thinking about the future, particularly where transit will fit in.

A series of public meet-ings to gather public input for the county’s transpor-tation plan is expected to begin at 6 p.m. March 15, at the Bogan Park Community Recreation Center.

“Getting input from the public is so important to us with this plan, in terms of getting the right goals and then moving into invest-ments that we may want to fund in the future,” Chapman said. “We need to understand what the com-munity wants.”

Nash said major changes have traditionally come from the creation of a major plan, whether it’s the trans-portation plan, the county’s overall comprehensive plan or other documents, such as the land-use plan.

She added that not every plan update brings big changes. This is bigger than the typical update, however,

and so major changes could be possible result.

“It would not surprise me if that were the case, but I’m going to wait and hear what comes out of this,” Nash said earlier this month. “I think we’ve got a good process laid out and obvi-ously a very robust public participation on a number of different levels. It’s going to be up to the folks across the community to make sure they take advantage of those opportunities to provide input.”

Nash also told the Daily Post in January that the county will look at several sets of numbers, includ-ing high, median and low estimates, while developing the plan.

There are some plans in the works already though for how some of Gwinnett’s transportation network will evolve in the near future. The Atlanta Regional Com-mission board approved it’s new Atlanta Region’s Plan for the area on Wednes-day. Although the ARC is mainly a 10-county group, it’s transportation planning area includes nearly twice as many counties.

That plan looks out to 2040, but includes several short-term projects, such as an extension of the toll lanes on Interstate 85 from Old

Peachtree Road to Hamilton Mill Road, and the addition of two lanes in each direc-tion on Buford Highway, from Thompson Mill Road to Friendship Road.

It also includes upgrad-ing the intersection of U.S. Highway 29 and Ga. Highway 316 from a traffic signal crossing to an inter-change that has an overpass bridge and exit ramps. This is one of six interchange conversions planned for Ga. Highway 316 in Gwinnett and Barrow counties that the ARC says will result in nearly all of the highway being controlled access through eastern Barrow.

Plans are already in place to convert the McGinnis Ferry Road at I-85 crossing to an interchange in the near future, and Ga. Highway 316, from I-85 to Ga. High-way 120, was identified in the ARC plan as a potential target for future toll lane expansion.

But there is also transit to consider, and that’s been a topic of discussion in the last year. In the last 12 months, the Gr8 Exchange on Transportation results showed participants want a multi-modal transportation network, and a Gwinnett Chamber survey released last spring showed sup-port for the county joining

MARTA.Even Lt. Gov. Casey

Cagle told the chamber in December that transporta-tion and transit, are major issues that Gwinnett, the rest of metro Atlanta and the state as a whole needs to deal with.

The county is already taking steps to expand Gwinnett County Transit by including funding in this year’s budget to add three bus routes to the system. Those routes will be studied this year and then rollout will begin.

A key question is where rail transit will fit into Gwinnett’s transportation future. Nash has said she believes rail was a factor in why many people said they support MARTA coming to Gwinnett.

It is certainly one reason why State Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth, has in-troduced legislation that asks county leaders to have community meetings to see if Gwinnett residents want to join MARTA, and to schedule a referendum.

“I see MARTA’s Doraville rail coming to Norcross, from Norcross going to Gwinnett Place Mall that you know needs that injection of economic development,” he said. “From there, I see Gwinnett Arena also as a stop — an incredible venue of enter-tainment and activities — and from there, who knows, (maybe) Gwinnett Techni-cal College (and) Georgia Gwinnett College.”

Other members of the Gwinnett Legislative Del-egation are also looking at commuter rail.

Rep. Buzz Brockway, R-Lawrenceville, recently introduced legislation to create a commission that would handle transit rail ex-pansion. Under this propos-al, however, commuter rail would be handled through the Georgia Regional Trans-portation Authority, also known as GRTA, instead of MARTA.

The proposed commis-sion would oversee transit rail expansion districts, which would be property lo-cated within a quarter-mile of a rail transit station.

During his visit to the chamber in December, Cagle didn’t pick which agency would be better fit to run commuter rail in the area, but he didn’t rule out incorporating MARTA either.

“We really do need a commuter rail option within our state and I think MARTA, with the existing infrastructure that’s there, may be able to be retooled and looked at to create a value added for the citi-zens,” he said. “The existing model needs to be changed. A lot of people don’t see value in stopping every five minutes.

“You show value by people being able to guar-antee people delivery times and being a transit option where there’s limited stops. That kind of infrastructure is very, very needed.”

But rail-based transit is not easy to implement. With a bus system, the county can buy a bus and use the existing road network. Commuter rail, on the other hand, not only needs trains, but also rail lines to run on.

“I think there’s a com-mon thought that we can just put passenger trains on the existing railroads and that’s a whole lot harder than just saying it,” she said. “The railroads have to agree to that, which means they have to see it as a good deal for them.

But, the county leaders will have to sort that out in the coming months. To realize a plan for where the county wants and should be in 2040, they’ll need the help of key community stakeholder groups and all of Gwinnett’s residents.

“I think people will look back at some point in the future and see that as an im-portant point in the history of Gwinnett,” Nash said.

By Curt yeoManscurt.yeomans @gwinnettdailypost.com

Cars cross the busy intersection of Hurricane Shoals Road and Duluth Highway in this 2015 file photo. County officials are in the middle of planning how Gwinnett’s transpor-tation network will evolve over the next 24 years. (File Photo)

Growing infinity

This overview rendering shows proposed ideas that are part of a long-term master plan for the expansion and rede-velopment of the Infinite Energy Center and surrounding area. (Special Photo)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 5C •gwinnettdailypost.com

progress 2016County’s specialized, themed education formats to continue

The future has arrived, and more is on the way in Gwinnett County Public Schools in the form of spe-cialized education formats, themed schools and career path introductions.

When the school district introduced academy high schools two years ago, it signaled a new direction in education that district leaders expect to continue in the coming decades. While the district expects growth of 2,500 to 3,000 students to continue in the next five years, officials also expect that education will be pre-sented to students in much of the same way it’s been pre-sented starting with changes that began two years ago.

At the Junior Achieve-ment Discovery Center at Discovery High School, which opened last fall, middle school students learn about personal finance and entrepreneurial concepts through two areas called BizTown and Finance Park.

At the Discovery Cen-ter and at academy high schools, local businesses partner to buy a storefront or offer employees to interact with students about their career to give students a real-world application.

At seven academy high schools across Gwinnett, students gain work-based experience in some cases, college credit or professional certification and a plan for postsecondary education and a career. The idea is to give students a voice in how they demonstrate education and develop skills to use in the workforce after graduation.

“Really it’s about keeping students engaged and excited about their life,” said Steve Flynt, the district’s chief strategy and performance officer. “… Any time we can link real world to a student’s

education, that’s what we’re after. So that may happen in the way we’re looking forward.”

Future long-term plans include a variety of options including themed schools that are geared toward a specific area such as health sciences and medicine or in-ternational business, finance and law. Those high schools are expected to be in the Norcross and Meadowcreek clusters.

“We know that through other school systems who’ve done this,” Flynt said, “the students not only moved into good-paying jobs, but they typically will move back to the same location where they started learning that, especially from the partner-ships.”

Coleman Middle School in Duluth, expected to open in August, will be the district’s first STEAM school, which means it adds arts to the science, technol-ogy, engineering and math acronym.

While some of these programs involve an entire school, other project-based learning activities further the real world application model that CEO/Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks discussed last year as ways to help stu-dents get and stay engaged.

“Technology helps make possible some more person-alized instruction,” Wilbanks said. “A lot of these things

may seem insignificant, but they aren’t insignificant when it comes to engaging students.”

Four new schools opened in August and some of them offered programs tailored for their students.

At Graves Elementary, there’s a program called “G-DART” which integrates dance, art, rhythm and the-atre. At Jordan Middle, the curriculum is deployed using a “gradual release” format where a teacher performs a given topic, and then moves into guided instruction. The school also has a music technology component.

An old school in a new lo-cation, Summerour Middle, has an environmental center that allows students to ex-plore outdoor classrooms within a community-man-aged agriculture program.

At the high school level, GCPS’ size helps the district roll out new or specialized programs because it has enough students to fill a classroom or program.

“We can offer a whole lot other opportunities for students where if you have a smaller school you just couldn’t,” Flynt said. “Whether it’s (Advanced Placement), dual enrollment with colleges, electives, all those other classes or even higher level classes are very difficult to separate if you don’t have enough students to fill a classroom.”

By Keith Farner

keith.farner @gwinnettdailypost.com

GCPS plans follow job, population trends

The post-Recession growth in Gwinnett County Public Schools remains nearly 3,000 students per year, but that’s less than half of the peak in the early 1990s that ushered in the cluster concept.

The school district has consistently measured growth, while at the height of the Great Recession enrollment growth was less than it is now or pre-2008. The early ’90s growth was 7,000 to 8,000 students per year, and that caused district leaders to put out a bond referendum that initially failed in February 1990, but later passed that fall, district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

“We were having redis-tricting almost every year to manage the growth,” she said. “So what we decided was, we developed the clus-ter concept, it would give parents a little of stability in terms of they would stay with their cluster. For the most part, we would try to keep you in that cluster.”

While the school district doesn’t project specific enrollment numbers beyond five years, but Steve Flynt, the district’s chief strategy and performance officer, said by 2030, enrollment is ex-pected to be at least 200,000 students. It’s about 176,000 this school year.

Recent growth has been

concentrated in the central and western parts of Gwin-nett, but overall, the district in recent years has grown by the size that’s equivalent to a high school.

“We see it in different areas of the county and that’s why we aren’t building a high school every year be-cause we’re able to fill high schools we have,” Flynt said.

The district follows general population projec-tions made by Gwinnett County and the Atlanta Regional Commission, and Flynt said they’re each valid. But that doesn’t necessarily help when building schools. Instead, district officials look at areas where new jobs may arrive.

While recent population growth has been on the south side of the Interstate 85 cor-ridor, “areas of innovation” could move to U.S. Highway 78 and the Ga. Highway 316 corridor where biomedical companies are looking to move.

Zoning, types of housing and transportation all play factors into where people live, and therefore where their children attend school and where the district makes plans to build new schools.

“That has a direct impact on people moving to the area because of jobs, and it will have in turn a direct impact on schools,” Flynt said. “So depending on how quickly those areas develop, that real has an impact on where the students will be going.”

By Keith Farnerkeith.farner @gwinnettdailypost.com

In this file photo from earlier this school year, Twin Rivers Middle School students Jonathan Fortt, left, and Isaac Philogene discuss a banking transaction in the Wells Fargo location inside BizTown at the Junior Achievement Center at Discovery High School. Every middle school student in Gwinnett County Public Schools will learn personal finance and entrepreneurial principles there during the school year. (File Photo)

6C SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 • gwinnettdailypost.com

www.gwinnettdailypost.com

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progress 2016SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 7C •gwinnettdailypost.com

New reclassification, new challenges for Gwinnett schools’ sports teams

Over the past few decades, the population explosion that Gwinnett County and other counties around metro Atlanta have experienced has forced several local and state-wide organizations to make some adjustments to keep up.

That phenomenon has extended to high school athletics, with the Georgia High School Associa-tion expanding from four different classifications a mere 16 years ago to seven when the 2016-17 school year begins in the fall.

As Gwinnett County Public Schools athlet-ics director John Weyher recently pointed out, the most recent GHSA expan-sion will require some ad-justments on the part of its GCPS members, as well as Buford High School and the county’s GHSA private schools, moving forward.

Among the biggest of those adjustments is finding a balance between competing in the GHSA’s new, revamped region alignments and maintain-ing longtime local neigh-borhood rivalries.

With the added new classification and corre-sponding smaller regions, Weyher admits doing so will be a bit of a challenge for some schools.

“We’re really heading into a lot of uncharted waters right now,” Weyher said. “As athletic depart-ments, we pride ourselves

with competitive athlet-ics in Gwinnett County. We want to maintain our rivalries for a couple of reasons. No. 1, they’re healthy (rivalries). No. 2, they bring economic impact for the schools. (School administrators and athletics directors) are trying to find ways to do that, and I think the ADs are doing a good job of communicating with each

other.”True, the new regions,

which were finalized and released last month, in-clude a major break-up of an alignment pattern that had kept many Gwinnett schools — particularly those in the GHSA’s larg-est classification — close to home throughout the regular season in many different sports.

That alignment included

two different regions con-sisting either entirely or nearly entirely of Gwin-nett schools in the highest classification since 2000.

Beginning this fall, there will be three dif-ferent regions in the new Class AAAAAAA with county teams in it, only one of which will be all-Gwinnett.

However, the new-comers in the other two

regions will include some foes that have a history with county schools, albeit not for a very long time.

“We’ve been fortunate in past years that (the two regions) have mostly been Gwinnett vs. Gwinnett,” Weyher said. “But now, we’re adding schools like Lakeside (DeKalb), New-ton County and Rockdale County. It’s going to have a different flavor to (the

new regions).”Those changes won’t

be limited to Gwinnett schools in the state’s largest classification, with Lanier, Buford and Greater Atlanta Christian all moving up one class, while Dacula (into a new region that includes Lanier) and Wesleyan each move down a class.

All of the new region and classification shifting, along with the fact that most regions will con-sist of fewer teams, will bring a variety of changes and adjustments for each school to make.

“No. 1 going forward, football coaches are now having to scramble to find enough (non-region) games to fill their sched-ules,” Weyher said. “And we want to make sure that all our other sports can get the games they need, and make sure the communi-cation with other schools is good. We all have to start preparing (for game days) differently — dif-ferent (pre-game) meal times, different leave times, different transporta-tion issues.”

How well schools from throughout Georgia adjust to the new alignments will also determine the length of times between realign-ments, as well.

“It’s a four-year deal,” Weyher said. “But after two years, we’ll be able to look and see if any changes need to be made. If (the system) works, it’ll be four years (before the next reclassification).”

By DaviD FrieDlanDerdavid.friedlander @gwinnettdailypost.com

Class actions

Buford running back Christian Turner reaches for the goal line during the Wolves’ victory over North Oconee in a 2015 game. Buford and several other Gwinnett schools move to new classifications in 2016 and could face more such shifts as the county grows. (Photo: David McGregor)

8C SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2016 • gwinnettdailypost.com

AUBURNCity preparing for annual

Easter Egg HuntAuburn officials are

reminding residents that with Easter on the horizon, it’s almost time for an an-nual right of passage: The Easter egg hunt.

The city has announced it will partner with the Auburn Public Library and the Friends of the Library group to hold the Eggcel-lent Egg Hunt at 2:30 p.m. on March 12, at Whistle-stop Park, next to City Hall, 1361 Fourth Ave. Children ranging from newborns to 10-year-olds are welcome to participate in the hunt.

The event will also in-clude craft sessions where kids can create an Easter bracelet, a scratch art egg or a fuzzy magnet that can be placed on their refriger-ators at home. Other parts of the event will include music, lemonade and live bunnies.

BARROW COUNTYWinder Fire Department

ribbon cutting set for March 13th

The Winder Fire Depart-ment will have a ribbon cut-ting and open house from 2 to 4 p.m. on March 13th to showcase the new remodel of Station No. 1 on North Broad Street in downtown Winder.

The event is open to the public and city officials encourage people to check out the renovations.

BERKELEY LAKEMayor cautions against

bow hunting deerMayor Lois Salter recent-

ly wrote in the city’s news-letter to caution residents against bow hunting within the city limits of Berke-ley Lake that she said is against city ordinances as well as the laws of other jurisdictions.

A resident recently told police that an arrow pro-truded from her chimney and police concluded it most likely was shot from across the lake, Salter wrote. She also worried about deer being wounded and eventually found dead around the city.

“There are plenty of places to hunt, but our city is not one of them.

BRASELTONLunch and Learn event

plannedOn March 9 at 11:30

a.m., a Lunch and Learn event is planned in Brasel-ton in the town Community Room at 5040 Ga. Highway 53.

The Friends of the Braselton West-Jackson Library present guest Lisa Stephens, executive direc-tor for Lindsay’s Legacy Mentoring.

Homemade soup and salad lunch will be served, according to the Downtown Braselton organization.

The cost is $6 per per-son.

To RSVP call 706-921-4113 or email lhannah97@msn.com.

BUFORDLibrary celebrates

Read Across AmericaThe Buford-Sugar Hill

branch of the public library is inviting residents to celebrate the annual Read Across America campaign on March 2.

The special guest reader will be Sugar Hill Elemen-tary media specialist Tammy Smith.

“A special truffula tree craft will be included in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birth-day,” a statement from the library noted.

This program is open to kids of all ages. The library is at 2100 Buford Highway, Buford.

DACULALibrary celebrating Read Across America Day on

WednesdayBreak out the red and

white striped top hats, and red bow ties, because Na-tional Read Across America Day will be observed at places like the Dacula

library branch on Wednes-day.

The annual celebration is held to observe Dr. Seuss’ birthday, and the Dacula li-brary plans to throw a party for kids ages 3-10. The event will take place at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, at the library, 265 Dacula Road.

Library staff will read Dr. Seuss stories, and there will be a craft activ-ity related to Read Across America Day.

DULUTH22nd annual

Easter Egg HuntThe city of Duluth’s

Parks and Recreation department will put on the 22nd annual Easter Egg Hunt on March 19 at Scott Hudgens Park at 4545 Rivergreen Parkway.

The kid-friendly event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., while the all-ages egg hunt is set for 2 p.m.

The rain date is March 26 at the same time and location.

Attendees are encour-aged to bring a basket. Eggs are supplied by the city.

For more information, call 770-814-6981.

GRAYSONLibrary hosting Read

Across America crafts all

day on WednesdayKids wanting to make

something to observe the birthday of Dr. Seuss, a day more well-known as “Read Across America Day,” will be in luck on Wednesday.

The Grayson library is inviting children under 7 to visit the branch “throughout the day to do crafts,” and then again at 6 p.m. for a special story time that will honor Dr. Seuss.

The branch is located at 700 Grayson Parkway.

LAWRENCEVILLECity seeking bids for

LMIG resurfacing projectLawrenceville officials

are seeking bids from contractors interested in resurfacing 2.4 miles of roads in the city.

the resurfacing is being down as a Local Mainte-nance and Improvement Grant, or LMIG, project. The Georgia Department of Transportation issues the grants to help local govern-ments, like Lawrenceville, pay for improvement to their roads.

The contract work in-cludes asphalt paving, mill-ing, patching, striping and associated work on various streets around the city.

A pre-bid conference has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on March 7 at Lawrencev-ille City Hall, 70 S. Clayton

St. The deadline to submit bids to the city’s purchas-ing department is 3 p.m. on March 21. The full, 120-page bid advertisement is available on the city’s website, www.lawrencevil-lega.org.

LILBURNGreenway bridge opens

On Feb. 19, the city of Lilburn completed up-grades to its Camp Creek Greenway Trail, including a bridge design that is new to the state of Georgia.

The greenway stretches 4.2 miles between Killian Hill Road and Rockbridge Road. Because the green-way was built in floodplain, seven boardwalks elevate walkers, runners, and cy-clists above marshy areas and streams.

The ongoing cost of maintaining the wooden boardwalks sparked the city’s interest in mainte-nance-free precast con-crete boardwalk product, called PermaTrak, the city said.

Future boardwalk up-grades are being planned to take place over the next five years. The city said it will add drainage improve-ments to the trail, as well, and will ramp up day-to-day efforts to clear the trail of mud and debris after heavy rainfall.

“Lilburn residents are

very active and treasure the Camp Creek Greenway Trail as the city’s most prized amenity,” Mayor Johnny Crist said. “The city of Lilburn will continue to invest in the health of the greenway.”

LOGANVILLELocal artist releases

debut singleLoganville native Jordan

Rager, 21, has released his debut single, “Southern Boy,” a country-rock track that features guest vocals from Jason Aldean. Rager is set to release a debut album on Broken Bow re-cords, which Southern Boy will be featured on. Accord-ing to billboard.com, the song recently jumped from No. 56 to No. 46 on the Country Airplay chart.

“The breezy song mixes modern lyrical staples (“Keep stealin’ those kisses from your Southern belle … Keep rollin’ with your bud-dies, raise a little hell”) with Aldean and Rager’s soulful vocals,” Billboard wrote.

NORCROSSFolk duo coming for First Friday concert

Out of the Rain, a folk duo made up of Ron Hipp and Carol Statella, is set to play the Norcross First Friday concert on March 4.

The performers are billed

on their website as “noted for innovative arrange-ments and unusual expres-sive power.”

The free concert is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Norcross Community Center, located at 10 College St.

PEACHTREE CORNERSPlans moving ahead on city veterans monument

Nearly a year ago the Peachtree Corners Veter-ans Monument Association was formed, its purpose to create a way to recognize the city’s residents who have served or are serving in the armed forces.

Within a few months, a committee formed, plans began to develop for the monument itself and a new website (www.ptsvets.net) was launched. And, recently, board members were informed that it had been granted 501©(3) tax exempt status, according to a news release from the city.

Committee chairman Bob Ballagh said more than 200 veterans have already contacted the as-sociation to provide their service information for the monument.

The monument will be lo-cated on the town green of the city’s new town center, which is due to open in fall 2017. Renderings of the monument are available on the PCVMA’s website.

SNELLVILLEDevelopment issues

pass councilThe Snellville mayor and

council on Monday ap-proved measures making way for several develop-ments.

The Golden Krust Caribbean restaurant is to move from Scenic Highway and Oak Road to 2358 East Main St., the former Huddle House.

Approval was also given for a conditional use permit and request for variances which will allow for the re-opening of a gas station and convenience store at 1103 Athens Highway. The plans are at the intersec-tion of Cooper Road.

The council also ap-proved 12Stone Church’s plans to open a new church in the old Best Buy on Sce-nic Highway.

SUGAR HILLChanges coming to

The BowlConcert-goers this year

in Sugar Hill will notice additional sidewalks and turfed areas on the com-mon area around The Bowl. A splash pad and party suite are among the changes to the area. It’s all designed to offer a bet-ter setup for events and festivals.

Suites can be rented for individual concerts for the summer concert series, depending on availability.

For more information or to rent a suite, contact Scott Andrews at san-drews@cityofsugarhill.com

SUWANEEBeer Fest set for

March 19For the sixth year, the

Suwanee American Craft Beer Fest is returning to Suwanee, this time to sample more than 300 craft beers on March 19 at Town Center Park.

“Although the event con-tinues to grow in size each year, we do not want the overall experience to be compromised. A lot of work has gone into developing a new layout for the event and we’re confident that it will improve the flow of the festival, while allowing for shorter lines and additional restrooms,” said Michelle Fasig, Suwanee Beer Festi-val Event Manager.

Many participating brew-eries use the experience as an opportunity to debut new or rare seasonal beers at the festival, as well as brewing some specifically for the annual Brew Battle. The festival features activi-ties such as cornhole and beer pong, as well as the largest home brew compe-tition in the area.

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MORE FROM DULUTH

Rainbow Village opens new Community Center

DULUTH — According to the American Institutes for Research, one in 45 American children expe-rience homelessness each year.

Rainbow Village is working to take care of these children and to break the cycle of homelessness, poverty and domestic violence. The organization is now better able to do so through the recent addi-tion of a Community Center to its campus.

Rainbow Village provides a transitional housing community for homeless families in North Metro Atlanta. Over the last 25 years, over 300 families have been helped to get back on their feet. They were provided with safe homes and es-sential support services.

The average age of homeless children in the Rainbow Village program is only 9 years old, so the new community center features many programs for these young children. The space will serve as a place for before and after school programs, tutoring, char-acter building classes, enrichment programs and the Early Childhood Development Center.

These opportunities have already helped the youth of Rainbow Village. Students have experi-enced improved academic and study skills, higher test scores and

increased school attendance and graduation rates. Leaders have also seen that children have a better understanding of proper behavior, social skills and family responsi-bilities.

As part of the Community Cen-ter, the Early Childhood Develop-ment Center serves children up to age four in families living at or below the poverty level. It provides programming during the hours before traditional day care begins. The Center received a license from Bright From the Start Licensing agency, which allows them to run a

child care and learning program.Rainbow Village is a registered

nonprofit organization that was founded in 1991. In addition to the programs for children, they also of-fer life skills training for adults in order to increase self-sufficiency. The construction of the Commu-nity Center is in the second phase of developments that result from a $7.7 million capital campaign which began in 2011.

The Rainbow Village campus is located at 3427 Duluth Highway 120 in Duluth. For more informa-tion, visit rainbowvillage.org.

By Polly ouellette

Staff Intern

The addition of the new Community Center and Early Childhood Development Center to the Rainbow Village campus will serve homeless children through after and before school programs, tutoring, and other enrich-ment opportunities. (Special Photos)

The new Community Center and Early Childhood Development Center to the Rainbow Village campus has indoor and outdoor play areas to serve homeless children in Gwinnett County.