Council looks at Gateway right of way

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville City Manager Bryan Shuler Thursday recommended that the city council approve a right of way maintenance agreement with the state Department of Transportation at the Exit 20 Interchange on I-985.

Shuler said the agreement would allow office complex developers on the old Central Park property to go ahead with their landscaping and grading project in the right of way.

"It's really going to be the initial step toward the Gateway project for that interchange that the Chamber and the city and the county and the others have been working on," Shuler said. "The DOT is requiring that a maintenance agreement be entered into between the city and the state to assume responsibility for any landscaping, any improvements that are made to that interchange."

ProCare, an Atlanta based medical services and products firm, is developing the site; Shuler said the city might want to use Gateway project funding for the maintenance work.

"It's a major corporate facility, potentially including a hotel with other features," Shuler added.

Gainesville City Council agreed to fund $30,000 a year for the next three years to support the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce Centennial Gateway project, in which Hall County interstate interchanges are cleaned up and landscaped.