2012 News Releases

February 2, 2012

SUWANEE'S 2012 EVENTS WILL 'MOVE' YOU

Festivals…races…and… concerts – oh my! The City of Suwanee's 2012 events calendar, now available on the What's New/Events page at www.suwanee.com, offers an entertaining harmony of sights and sounds.

Event attendees will see a locally produced Broadway show, artists at work, and cultural displays and performances. They also will hear eeks and screams at October's Terror on the Trail, barks during Star 94's Woofstock event in May, and cheers when the Atlanta Braves present a Game on the Green, also in May.

In all, Suwanee will host approximately 35 City-sponsored and privately presented events in 2012. The first event on the calendar is the Rotary Club of Buford/North Gwinnett's Suwanee Sweetheart Sprint on February 11. The first concert will celebrate Atlanta's Greatest Hits Birthday Bash on April 14.

"We hope to move you, shake you, and get you up on your feet dancing," says Events Manager Amy Doherty. "We try to create a wide variety of event options so that citizens of all ages have a chance to come make a memory. It's like enjoying a little vacation in your own backyard."

Many of Suwanee's most popular events – including the Suwanee Beer Festival, Arts in the Park, Taste of Suwanee, Great American Campout, Korean Festival, and, of course, Suwanee Day – are returning as are several events that have more than one date, including the Farmers Market, Art on a Limb, and Terror on the Trail.

New this year is Suwanee's Super Incredible Race, a team scavenger hunt around town that also will require participants to use their thinking caps. This event will be held April 21. Registration for this event will be available at www.suwanee.com by the middle of the month.

January 30, 2012

LET SUWANEE DAY BE YOUR MUSE

Suwanee Day + your creativity could = $500 cash!

The Suwanee Day festival is bringing back its popular logo design competition. This year's winning design will serve as the official logo for the 2012 "celebration of community" and will be imprinted on festival t-shirts and promotional materials; the winning artist will receive $500 cash. Submissions will be accepted through May 31.

Digitally created designs as well as original artwork – including paintings, drawings, and photographs – will be accepted. Completed applications must accompany submissions, which should be printed and mounted on foam board. Digital copies of the submissions, in jpeg or pdf formats, also are requested.

Designs may incorporate any, all, or none of the following:

Suwanee Day 2012
September 15, 2012
Town Center Park
A Celebration of Community

Guidelines and applications are available at www.suwaneeday.com.

Last year, approximately 55,000 attended the Suwanee Day festival at Town Center Park. This year's celebration will be September 15.

January 25, 2012

PUBLIC ART IS A (TWO-TIME) WINNER IN SUWANEE

The City of Suwanee has been recognized twice in recent days for its public arts initiative and particularly for its inaugural Suwanee SculpTour exhibit. On Sunday, January 22, Suwanee was one of six Georgia cities recognized as a Trendsetter by the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and Georgia Trend magazine. On Monday, the City was awarded a Community Impact – Community Arts Program Award from ArtWorks! Gwinnett.

The Trendsetter Award was presented during GMA's annual Mayors' Day Conference in Atlanta. Suwanee was recognized for bringing together public art and the community in public spaces as part of its economic development efforts. According to GMA, judges determined that the City's vision and careful planning undertaken in order to accomplish its goals made Suwanee a Trendsetter.

This is Suwanee's fourth Trendsetter Award. Since 2005, the City has been recognized for creation of Town Center, community input in local government, and its open space and parks initiative.

The City of Suwanee was a co-winner, along with the Gwinnett County Public Library, of the Community Impact – Community Arts Program Award, presented by ArtWorks! Gwinnett.

"The selection committee looked at the community impact of programs between December 1, 2010 and December 1, 2011," says Sally Corbett, executive director of ArtWorks! Gwinnett. "It was clear that Suwanee SculpTour was the most ambitious and bold public art project during that time frame and needed to be recognized. SculpTour was well-organized and extremely well-received by citizens of Suwanee and from throughout Gwinnett. It provides a new tourism destination and gives working artists an opportunity for exposure."

The City of Suwanee is committed to utilizing public art as an economic development tool to attract visitors, residents, and businesses to Suwanee; a means to enhance downtown Suwanee and citizens' quality of life; and a way to create a unique sense of identity for the community. Suwanee SculpTour is a technology-enhanced, walkable, outdoor exhibit of 15 sculptures in and around Town Center. Funded entirely by corporate and individual donations, the inaugural 2011 Suwanee SculpTour will conclude at the end of March.

January 23, 2012

SUWANEE SEEKS ARTWORK FOR 2012 SCULPTOUR

WANTED: Sculptures and other artwork that can stand the heat and weather the cold of an outdoor exhibit from May 2012-March 2013. Creativity is a must, and non-conformists are welcome. SculpTour is an equal opportunity exhibit and does not discriminate based on size, material, or style.

The City of Suwanee has issued a request for proposals from artists and teams of artists interested in having their work exhibited in the 2012 Suwanee SculpTour. An outdoor exhibit of sculptures on loan from the artists, SculpTour is designed to be a walkable, interactive public art encounter. The inaugural 2011 SculpTour, which concludes at the end of March, includes 15 sculptures in and around downtown Suwanee.

Selected artists receive a stipend, and the sculpture voted the "People's Choice" at the end of the exhibit will be purchased and added to Suwanee's permanent public art collection. More information about this creative opportunity is available on the Business Matters/Requests for Proposals page at www.suwanee.com. The deadline for submissions is February 17.

The 2011 SculpTour includes technology-enhanced features that help make the exhibit more interactive. Visitors and residents may vote for their favorite sculpture via the City's website (www.suwanee.com) or QR codes on each sculpture. In addition, Suwanee created an audio guided tour/podcast that may be downloaded via iTunes.

Suwanee SculpTour is funded entirely by corporate and private sponsors.

January 5, 2012

GUIDED PODCAST OF SUWANEE SCULPTOUR
NOW AVAILABLE ON iTUNES

A guided audio tour/podcast of the Suwanee SculpTour exhibit is now available for download on iTunes. The approximately 32-minute podcast – which provides information about the 15 sculptures in the exhibit and some of the City's permanent public art pieces as well as insights from participating artists – is designed to be listened to while walking through the exhibit. With pauses, the guided tour will take approximately an hour to complete.

City Councilmember and Public Arts Commission Chair Dick Goodman and City of Suwanee Receptionist Annette Phelps serve as tour guides, providing directions and light-hearted commentary. Most of the participating artists offer information about their sculpture and the creative process.

To download the podcast, visit iTunes and search "Suwanee SculpTour." Click on the "Guide to 2011 Suwanee SculpTour" link to download. The audio tour also may be downloaded from the City of Suwanee website by clicking on the "listen" link in the right margin of the What's New/Suwanee SculpTour page.

The 2011 Suwanee SculpTour, which opened last May, will run through the end of March. The exhibit includes 15 sculptures of varying sizes, styles, and materials in and around downtown Suwanee. The exhibit is funded entirely through corporate and private donations; 2011 sponsors include Georgia Natural Gas, the Law Offices of Richard Yoon, Peoples Bank & Trust, Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Ippolito's Italian Restaurant.

Sponsors for the 2012 SculpTour are currently being sought; contact Denise Brinson at 770/945-8996 for more information.

Residents and others may vote for their favorite sculpture; the sculpture that receives the most votes will be purchased by the Suwanee Public Arts Commission and added to the City's permanent collection. There are a variety of ways to vote:

Visit www.suwanee.com/whatsnew.sculptour.php and click on the green "People's Choice Vote for Me" button beside the description of your favorite sculpture.
Those with smart phones and, if necessary, a free downloaded application, may access the website and vote via QR codes printed on the signs on each sculpture.
Paper ballots are available in a box just outside City Hall on Charleston Market Street. The completed ballots should be placed in the adjacent secure silver drop box.

The "Guide to 2011 Suwanee SculpTour" podcast was made possible through a grant from the Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau.

January 4, 2012

CITY TO IMPLEMENT LCI GRANT TO RECONSTRUCT BUFORD HWY
AS CONTEXT-SENSITIVE, MULTIMODAL ROADWAY

The City of Suwanee will implement a nearly $3.3 million Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) grant, received through the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), to reconstruct a portion of Buford Highway as a context-sensitive roadway that will safely accommodate multiple modes of transportation and help connect residents and visitors to a variety of activity centers.

Rather than simply widening Buford Highway, as many communities seem interested in doing, Suwanee's plans call for the thoroughfare to remain a two-lane road with the addition of sidewalks, multiuse trails, landscaped medians, additional streetscaping, operational improvements such as turn lanes, and a potential roundabout in order to accommodate additional modes of transportation, calm existing traffic, encourage Town Center-like development, and provide safer pedestrian access.

"We're not rebuilding the entire roadway itself," says Planning Division Director Matthew Dickison. "Rather, we're adding elements that will make Buford Highway context-sensitive to its surrounding areas and help facilitate quality future development. This project is a key element in the City's commitment to connecting different parts of downtown."

The City's initial step will be to conduct a scoping study that will provide more detailed estimates related to the project's feasibility, cost, and timeline. That study will be initiated by next month. Construction is anticipated to begin sometime in 2013 with completion expected about two years later.

This project originated with the 2009 update to Suwanee's Downtown Master Plan. A follow-up 2010 Buford Highway Transportation Study calls for the road to be developed in three sections in a manner that respects the character of each area:

Rural (from McGinnis Ferry to Davis Street) – Protect the tree canopy; leave natural; add multiuse paths.
Historic (from Davis Street to just south of Town Center) – In addition to travel lanes, add bike lanes, potential parallel parking, landscaping, sidewalk/multiuse paths, potential roundabout, and space for possible sidewalk cafes.
Town Center – Landscape medians as pedestrian refuges and for aesthetics; add bike lanes and sidewalks/multiuse paths; make crosswalk improvements.

Feedback received through public comment opportunities when the plan was being created indicated that participants overwhelmingly supported the context-sensitive design rather than widening, Dickison notes. The study found that expanding the highway to a conventional four-lane road would cost approximately $12.5 million and further separate the existing Town Center and historic Old Town areas.

The LCI grant, which Suwanee received in November, is for reconstructing sections of Buford Highway in a context-sensitive manner from Davis Street to Suwanee Dam Road. The estimated cost for improvements in those sections is a little more than $4 million, with Suwanee responsible for a 20 percent match of $824,058, which will come from 2009 SPLOST funds. Project details and costs are subject to change as the scoping study and engineering are undertaken.

In September, the ARC received 48 applications from 43 LCI areas requesting $97 million. The ARC elected to fund 13 projects, including Suwanee's, and awarded $34 million to 13 LCI areas. Suwanee's project, Dicksion says, was acknowledged for providing complete streets (that is, multimodal access) and its innovative design.

Including this project and the Brushy Creek Trail project, for which the City recently received a $450,000 federal Transportation Enhancement grant through the Georgia Department of Transportation, the City of Suwanee has committed more than $5 million to improving connectivity to and within downtown.

January 4, 2012

Calendar Announcement
NEW MAYOR TO OFFER STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

Suwanee's new mayor, Jimmy Burnette, will present his first State of the City address at 6 p.m. Wednesday, January 11, at City Hall, 330 Town Center Avenue. This annual presentation is part of the regular Suwanee Business Alliance meeting. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Burnette, a lifelong Suwanee resident who has served on City Council since 1996, will take this opportunity to introduce himself and offer a broad perspective of the community, comparing the Suwanee of his childhood and today. The mayor also will provide information about where Suwanee will be headed in 2012 and beyond.