TIMELINE• Late 2008: Officials with Georgia Northwestern begin discussing a Catoosa County campus• July 2009: Coosa Valley Technical College and Northwestern Technical College merge• December 2009: Land-clearing ceremony• June 2011: Officials discuss new locationsSource: Times Free Press archives
A college planning to build in Catoosa County now is reconsidering the location after discovering protected wetlands would limit access to the campus.
“There are far more positives than negatives, but the negatives are dealbreakers until we can get it worked out,” said Craig McDaniel, president of Georgia Northwestern Technical College, the Rome-based college whose officials began talking about a Catoosa County satellite campus in 2008.
In December 2009, a “land clearing” ceremony was held at a site on Cloud Springs Road. The 37-acre campus was expected to cost $13.6 million and to focus on automotive and manufacturing training.
McDaniel said the original surveys and land documents from the county did not show the wetlands, but a new survey this year showed wetlands drainage areas where two main access roads for the college were supposed to go.