Walk across College Avenue this Saturday on your way to the Western Kentucky game and you'll see it: half the block is brick pavers and new trees, the other half is still ringed in orange fencing. That split is not an accident and it is not a delay in the way most people mean when they say a downtown project is behind. It is the difference between two deadlines that Athens has been quietly conflating all summer, and knowing which one you're standing in tells you something about how this city actually gets things built.
The block in question sits between East Broad Street and East Clayton Street, directly across from the Arch, in the spot Athens closed to cars back in October 2020 as a pandemic-era experiment and then voted to keep car-free for good the following spring. For four years it sat there mostly as-is, a popular but unfinished pedestrian space. Then on November 6, 2024, the Mayor and Commission signed off on a real redesign with the Athens Downtown Development Authority, and Sheridan Construction broke ground on January 28, 2026.
The Deadline Everyone Remembers Wasn't the Real One
Every news story about this project this year led with the same target: done before the Bulldogs' first home game. That's the deadline that made headlines, and technically, it held. Athens-Clarke County's own project page draws a careful distinction between "substantial completion," which was expected before the September 5 opener against Tennessee State, and "final completion," which the county has always listed as October. Substantial completion means the barricades come down enough for foot traffic to move through comfortably on a game day. It does not mean shade sails installed, trees planted, or furniture set out.
That's the gap you're walking through this month. The square is open in the sense that matters for 93,000 people trying to get from the Arch to Sanford Stadium without a bottleneck. It is not open in the sense of being the finished civic space Athens has been promised since 2024.
What Actually Slowed It Down
The wrinkle nobody outside city meetings knew about until spring: Georgia Power. In April, despite having been notified of the construction timeline months in advance, the utility asked to pause work for five weeks so crews could replace equipment inside two underground vaults beneath the square. Had that pause gone through as requested, the project's completion date would have slid from early September into mid-October, blowing straight through the football deadline everyone had been counting on.
SPLOST project manager Diana Jackson negotiated an alternate plan instead, one that kept the timeline intact by adding $80,000 to the project's cost.
"The last thing we want to do is put anybody out of business," Jackson said of the pressure to keep storefronts accessible through construction.
That $80,000 is a small number next to the project's total budget, but it's a useful reminder that the thing holding up a downtown redesign is rarely the part anyone can see. It's not the pavers or the trees. It's what's sitting in a vault under the street that a contractor didn't know about until they were already six weeks into the job.
What the Money Actually Buys
Officials have floated different figures for this project over the past few years, and the number that has stuck through 2026 reporting sits at roughly $6.5 to $7 million. Here's how that breaks down:
| Funding Source | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ADDA financing and parking revenue | Majority of project cost | Covers the bulk of the $6.5–7M total |
| TSPLOST 2023, Project #28 | $500,000 | Voter-approved transportation sales tax |
| Georgia Power vault workaround | $80,000 | Added in April 2026 to preserve the September deadline |
That table is short on purpose. The interesting part isn't the total, it's that the biggest line item is financing carried by a downtown development authority through parking revenue, not a new tax passed specifically for this square. If you've ever wondered where your metered parking dollars downtown actually go, this is one answer.
The Storefronts That Didn't Wait for the Ribbon Cutting
If you've lived in Athens long enough to remember what used to sit on this block, the redesign is also a small history lesson. The spot that once housed Athens' first Varsity location is now a walk-up Chick-fil-A. The old Barnett's newsstand, where generations of students browsed magazines and snacks before class, is now Dress Up Athens, a women's clothing boutique. Neither business waited for October to open. They've been operating through a year of torn-up pavement, temporary walkways, and a construction liaison whose entire job is keeping storefronts informed about access changes week to week.
On the ground, that liaison work has looked like subcontractors such as Greater Georgia Concrete laying the decorative pavers block by block, coordinating around business hours rather than shutting the whole square down at once. It's the kind of detail that explains why a project with an eight-month timeline can still feel, from the sidewalk, like it's been under construction forever. It has been, just not all at once.
October 24, In Order
The actual finish line has a date now, and it comes with a schedule:
- 11:00 a.m. — Official ribbon cutting
- 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. — SquareFest, a family-focused afternoon with local community partners
- 7:00 p.m. — A free outdoor concert by BTBTE, a 90s tribute band, closing out the day
That's the version of College Square with the shade sails up, the new trees in the ground, and the furniture actually out. If you want to see the square football season promised you, that Saturday is the one to plan around, not this one.
Why It's Built the Way It Is
ADDA director of planning and outreach David Lynn has described the whole project as a kind of handshake between the university and downtown, and the design choices back that up. The brick paving and tree canopy are meant to echo UGA's North Campus, closing the visual gap between the Arch and the storefronts across the street. The square also connects to a larger downtown master plan that eventually links this block to City Hall as one continuous pedestrian corridor, not just a single renovated intersection.
Athens has changed shape around this block for a while now. Mayor Kelly Girtz has pointed out that roughly 7,000 people have moved into downtown Athens over the past fifteen years, a shift that's made a permanent, well-built public square more of a necessity than an amenity. The square isn't being built for one football season. It's being built for the version of downtown that already exists on the other side of the Arch, one that's grown up around exactly this kind of gathering space.
For now, the honest answer to "is College Square done" is: mostly, and on purpose not yet. The barricades you're walking past this month are doing exactly what they're supposed to do, holding the last six weeks of a two-year project in place until the real finish line on October 24.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually offers day to day, beyond the headlines and the game-day crowds, that's the kind of on-the-ground read Homes with HP specializes in across Clarke County and the rest of Northeast Georgia. Reach out when you're ready to talk about what life here really looks like, block by block.
