Mount de Sales $1 million upgrade enhances College Hill Corridor (Atlanta: 2014, landscaping)

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BEAU CABELL/THE TELEGRAPH Macon, Ga., 11/06/2014: Chris Sheridan, holding the new landscaping design plan for Mt. De Sales' downtown campus, points out the new traffic flow that will utilize a connector through the middle of the property from Orange Terrace to Appleton Street. School officials announced the new, $1 million project at a new conference Thursday



A $1 million facelift of the downtown campus of Mount de Sales Academy is playing right into the master plan for College Hill Corridor.
The Catholic high school and middle school nestled between Orange and College streets is landscaping new pedestrian walkways, plazas and brick entrance ways that mimic other recent development in the corridor.
“We are trying to copy our big brother, Mercer,” said contractor Chris Sheridan. “Every square foot of the exterior of the campus will be touched. ... If we’re going to be truly a proper member of the College Hill Corridor, then we need to look right.”
The school hired Atlanta-based HGOR landscape designers, the planners for Mercer University’s Cruz Plaza and the M. Diane Owens Garden that filters rainwater off Stadium Drive near the baseball field.
The next phase of development at Mount de Sales will include a new plaza with a rain garden in front of McAuley Hall. The cascading walls and filtering design will help clean runoff and keep pollutants from reaching streams and rivers.
Todd Fuller, HGOR’s project manager, said that feature can be good teaching tool.
“They are putting that gesture front and center and making a commitment to environmental sustainment and saying we are owning our responsibility to take care of that,” Fuller said.
The entire project’s impact will be felt through the generations, he said.
“They are making an investment for the long-term to be a place to be celebrated,” Fuller said.
In recent months, Mount de Sales bought multiple properties on the dead end of Rose Place to create a new one-way entrance and parking near the new $3.6 million Father John Cuddy Hall middle school building.
Sheridan said $170,000 saved from construction costs went directly into improving the landscape. Earlier this fall, large trees and flowering bushes were planted around the new middle school entrance.
A new gateway is also planned at the Appleton Street corner of Columbus Street beside the school’s Zuver Center.
Donors have committed what ever else it takes to implement the plan, which is estimated to cost $1 million, Sheridan said Thursday before the official announcement of the project.
Mercer President Bill Underwood said as a parent of a Mount de Sales student, he knows the school’s educational heritage that dates back to 1876 when the Sisters of Mercy opened the prep school.
“I think we all understand that people draw conclusions about that quality of what’s inside the box from the box itself,” Underwood told those gathered for the announcement. “I think it’s very important that the campus environment reflect the quality of the educational experience that the students are having. We’ve seen that at Mercer.”
College Hill Alliance’s Jessica Walden applauded the school’s $5 million in campus improvements since 2009.
“When you talk about the vibe of the College Hill Corridor, you can’t help but really feel it when you see these Mount de Sales students at our local businesses in Mercer Village, after class when you see them walking around Tattnall Park and participating in all that College Hill has to offer,” Walden said.
Mount de Sales President David Held said the school’s location in the heart of the corridor led to impressive partnerships with Mercer and the Medical Center, Navicent Health.
“We can have kids walk to Mercer for classes,” Held said. “We’re in partnership with the hospital now and we have kids that walk there for the internships, so it’s great, unique opportunity for our kids.”
The enhancements planned over the next year complement the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s plans for a livable downtown neighborhood where people can safely walk and ride a bicycle, said executive director Beverly Blake.
“The more we can all be the part of the same vision and the same plan, the stronger this city will be,” she said.

http://www.macon.com/2014/11/06/3408...rade.html?rh=1