By Megan Carnell | Over the last ten years, Sugar Hill hasbeen quietly and effectively managing its many assets and preparing for the future. Well, the future is now and the city is more than ready to take on the challenge! As the fourth largest city in Gwinnett County, and as the population continues to grow, city leaders are boldly moving forward with plans to build a 21st Century downtown destination for residents and visitors alike.
This rebirth was spurred by the persistent voices of an engaged community yearning for their own sense of place – a downtown to shop, eat, work, play, live and be entertained. The city’s past investments in a new city hall, amphitheater and downtown streetscape, have helped pave the way for their current motto of “Go Big or Go Home,” a mantra of Mayor Steve Edwards. City leaders have made it clear they will work to do it right to a scale that will set Sugar Hill apart from the rest of its peers in Georgia and across the country. Mayor Edwardsmaintains, “We have beefed up our resources and we are laser focused to fast track this process.”
After nearly a year of planning, design and site acquisition, the city will begin construction this summer on its extensive mixed-use downtown development project to be called the EpiCenter. It will include a 326-seat performing arts theater, a recreation center and gymnasium, community rooms, some 30,000 square feet of retail, office, and restaurant space, including a roof-top lounge. All will be connected by a large pedestrian plaza sitting atop a parking garage overlooking the city’s 2,500 seat natural amphitheater, named “The Bowl atSugar Hill.” The $30 million EpiCenter should be open for business in the fall of 2016.
Taylor Anderson, chairman of the city’s Downtown Development Authority, is excited about this project but also points to all the other projects that are feeding off the city’s energy and investments. A private development team is inthe final stages of presenting a mixed-use project for consideration by the Downtown Development Authority and the city that would include housing and more commercial space overlooking the Bowl and lawn area behind city hall. The former City Hall is now called the Suite Spot and houses 12 new business in an incubator setting. Monthly memberships for a large co-working space will be available May 1 at the Suite Spot. The 2,300 square foot annex building is being transformed into DaddyO’s Irish Ice Cream Pub, a distinctivenew restaurant that will offer regular and alcohol infused ice cream, a bar, as well as an extensive Irish pub menu.
The city’s amphitheatre, The Bowl at Sugar Hill, the city’s newest venue, is becoming its namesake center stage, quite literally. Scott Anderson adds:“Each event we host in the Bowl is an opportunity to tell our story of where we’ve been, where we are, who we are and where we’re going. That story will be told over and over again as people visit downtown and get entertained by the wide range of local, regional and national events in the Bowl.”
All the anticipated public and private projects soon to come out of the ground will amplify the city’s high octane energy and its “Go Big or Go Home” mantra. With all this as well as its parks, golf course and beautiful neighborhoods, Sugar Hill is becoming the place to go to “Enjoy the Sweet Life!”
Megan Carnell is events and marketing coordinator for the City of Sugar Hill.
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