Southside residents will soon be able to take a new city cart path to the southern tip of Peachtree City’s industrial park.

The bridge that will allow the crossing of Flat Creek is already in place behind the Morallion Hills subdivision. But you can’t get to the bridge yet thanks to federal stormwater guidelines. Those rules forced the city to build the bridge higher than anticipated, so it doesn’t cause flooding downstream, said City Planner David Rast.

Thursday night, the city approved a $84,400 bid from Integrated Science and Engineering in Fayetteville to design the approach ramps to the bridge, which were necessary to account for the additional height required for the bridge.

ISE officials informed the city that they might be able to reduce the design costs as low as $58,100 if officials sign off on an alternate design. Although ISE was underbid by another firm, city staff picked ISE after scoring all four bidders for price, experience and understanding of the proposal.

Though the scoring difference between ISE and The LPA Group was minimal, staff felt ISE had a better grasp for the project, said City Manager Bernie McMullen. Saving $22,000 now may cost the city more down the road in terms of maintenance issues and the like that can be related to design flaws, McMullen added.

Rast hopes the project can be bid in time to have construction done within three months’ time.

The approach paths also will have to be designed so they don’t affect stormwater downstream on Flat Creek, Rast said. The city has abandoned a plan to put a wooden boardwalk near the wetland area because federal guidelines would make it too costly, Rast added.

A number of staffers at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Control office are excited about being able to use the path to get to work, Rast said.

The city got about $48,000 in a federal grant to build the bridge, but that didn’t cover the entire cost of construction, Rast said.

The bridge will link with a path constructed for the Gardner Park industrial subdivision that was built by Pathway Communities, Rast said.

In the future, the city has plans for the path to extend southward to the future Hannon Memorial Sports Complex and a nearby tunnel under Ga. Highway 74 that will link to the city’s Highway 74 baseball and soccer complex, Rast said.

A future path will also extend northward all the way up to the FAA building, Rast said.

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