Perry to create new park in the city

PERRY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – City officials in Perry are moving forward with plans to improve a dangerous, blighted area in the city. 

A new park is in the works. 

On any given day, hundreds of cars zoom past the old lot on the corner of Houston Lake Drive and Main Street. 

The blighted space is right in front of Brooke Temple’s hair salon, Salon Seven. 

“I think it’s going to be wonderful. I think it’s going to be very pretty, and it’s definitely going to be better than the eye sore that it is now,” Temple said. 

She, like city officials, is hopeful the road improvements and planned park will help the area and her business. 

“We have customers that park across the street and walk, and some times we walk across the street. It’s dangerous,” Temple said. 

Perry city manager Lee Gilmour says park plans have been approved. 

“The end game of mayor and council, in this particular case, is to have a series of very pleasant, green, aesthetic areas coming into the downtown from the different areas,” Gilmour said. 

The goal, Gilmour says, is to eliminate the cut through between the two busy streets.

“Once the street improvements are in, then there will be a land architect hired to come in and come up with a design,” Gilmour said. 

Officials plan on spending between $300,000 and $400,000 on the project using penny sales tax money. 

The one and half acre of land is the second of four projects that the city is planning for entrances to downtown. 

“One of the things that council takes a look at is one, is it a good location? Two, will it eliminate some type of blight that you have because property is undeveloped or underused and then the third is does it just make sense and is it cost effective,” Gilmour said. 

Temple is looking forward to the change and thinks others in the city will enjoy it as well. 

“I think Perry is a pretty city and anything to make it prettier, I’m good with,” she said. 

Perry officials say the project should take around 8 to 10 months to complete. 

Gilmour is hoping the new park will be finished by the start of the Dogwood Festival in the spring.