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Officials said park could be completed by late fall

City officials are expecting construction on the new Heritage Park to pick up steam over the coming weeks and months with it possibly being open to guests in the fall.

Andalusia Projects Director Andy Wiggins reported to the city council Wednesday that bids for multiple aspects of the park project will be let soon while some work is being done by city employees.

“We just went out for bids to finish all the piping for the park,” Wiggins said. “Hopefully within three weeks we’ll come back to the city council to award that part of the contract.”

Next for the project will be soliciting bids for a concrete interior wall around the pond that will be the centerpiece of the park followed by bidding out other concrete work, including the amphitheater areas. During those efforts, local resources and employees will be working on grading.

“We will be finishing up the grading, including for the walking trail and getting it ready to pave,” Wiggins said.

At that point, the city will use Wiregrass Construction, with whom it has a contract for paving projects, to complete the walking trail.

“Everything is going along now and we should start seeing work pick up (at the park site) over the next month. Once it starts going, it will continue one after another and hopefully by late fall, early winter we will have it completed,” Wiggins said.

Efforts to get the site ready included the demolition of a building and a lot of clean-up.

“We did as much demo under the dirt as we did above the dirt. I was amazed at how much debris from old buildings and footers were left from, I guess, the past 100 years. We ran into where portions of it was used for a landfill. We excavated all that out with the hopes that when the contractors come in there won’t be any time delays because of the excess stuff underground,” Wiggins said.

Heritage Park will be located at the corner of S. Cotton and Tisdale streets. Andalusia-based CDG, Inc. is providing the engineering plans.