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During the Troup County Board of Commissioners’ regular meeting on Dec.20, the county discussed plans for the entrance to the new Rosemont Elementary School as well as the possibility of helping pay for it.

County Engineer James Emery gave an overview of concept plans for different options for entrances to the upcoming school.

Emery said the school had multiple entrances in the early concept plan in May. He described the concept plan as “crayon lines on a county map,” indicating that they were not really a design.

“The idea at that time was to put the school in this location with car rider line entering on Burgess Rd.  and bus traffic in the front entering onto Rosemont School Road and another loop for special needs education pickup and drop off with two entrances on Rosemont School Rd.,” Emery said.

Emery said the county had concerns with the plan because it would put extra traffic on Burgess Rd. Neither the north intersection where Burgess connects with Rosemont Rd. nor the south intersection where it connects with Hamilton Rd. are intersections that the county would want to put more traffic on, he said.

“Immediately after seeing this concept, we began more discussions with the school administrators and their design team,” Emery said. “The concept that we have now has gone out for pricing and is very close to a final design at this point. We think it’s really a vast improvement over what you saw on that original crayon drawing.”

The new design has no entrance to the school on Burgess Rd. Rosemont School Rd. would also not have a main entrance for the school. The main entrance for the school would be directly from Hamilton Rd. with a new driveway at the new location.

Emery said with the new plan, the intersection of Rosemont School Rd. could be abandoned, which he noted was a great improvement.

”We think that this plan overall is a really good design,” Emery said.

The car rider line for drop off and pick up will be at the back of the school. It will accommodate 300 stacked cars.

“That’s the largest queuing line we have anywhere in Troup County in any school,” Emory said. “It’s one of the largest the designer said that they said they’ve ever done, and they design schools all the time and are specialists in school design.”

“We have problems with cars queuing up off-site at schools all over Troup County, and there are serious safety problems when you’ve got cars queuing up in the public road,” he said.

Emery said a left turn lane and a right turn lane are in the plans to be added for the Hamilton Rd. entrance.

“The length of the turn lanes has been designed exactly in keeping with Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) standards. GDOT traffic engineers have been involved with the site design consultant, and they laid this out exactly according to what those engineers all agree should be the design should be,” he said.

County Manager Eric Mosley said the county has been in discussions with GDOT and the Board of Education to work on a way to help or assist the school system with potentially funding the new entranceway. There have been discussions to potentially use countywide SPLOST V funds in the amount of $250,000 to help pay for the entrance.

“We believe it would benefit the unincorporated county and even take off additional wear and tear off Burgess Rd. as well as the abandonment potentially of Rosemont School Rd, which the county currently is responsible for maintaining,” Mosley said.

Mosley said no action was needed from the commissioners until an intergovernmental agreement is drawn up.