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The Troup County Board of Commissioners took another major step toward the new pool at the William J. Griggs Recreation Center on Tuesday, accepting a bid that will officially start work on the project.

The commissioners voted to accept the low bid from Sheridan Construction for $669,533 for rough grading for the new pool and poolhouse area.

Five companies had representatives at a mandatory pre-bid meeting held at the Griggs Center on Aug. 17. The county received bids from three of the companies present at that meeting.

Architect Skip Smith said drawings for the pool and pool pavilion have just been completed and they will be put out for bids around the end of September. The sealed bids will be opened a month later on Oct. 30.

“Hopefully by that time, the grading will be well along, maybe even completed. That’s why we broke it up into two phases to fast-track it as best we can,” Smith said.

County Manager Eric Mosley said that the grading will require quite of bit of soil to be brought in during the grading, noting that much of the soil around the Griggs Center is “bad dirt.”

Smith joked that they had potentially found the “worst dirt in Troup County” when preparing to build the new gym and pool. Mosley said he believes when the Griggs Center was first built they excavated the creek bed on the property to fill in areas, so the soil is very silty and loamy making it poor to build atop. The county believes the previous pool’s leaking problems were caused by the soil.

The county is hoping that the pool will be ready for next summer. Assistant County Manager Jay Anderson previously estimated that the pool would be completed by May 2024.

Mosley said the primary funding source for the new pool is a $2.2 million grant in federal ARPA funds that were awarded by Gov. Brian Kemp in May. The county applied for two grants, one for the pool replacement and another for a pickleball facility near the LaGrange Active Life Senior Center. Both grants were approved for $2.2 million each.

Both grants were part of nearly $7 million worth of funds awarded by the governor throughout Troup County. The City of LaGrange was awarded $693,429 for the construction of a bicycle playground planned near Berta Weathersbee Elementary and Visit LaGrange, Inc. was awarded $1,812,888 for the development of the Mulberry Street Cemetery and Park.

More than $225 million in grants for 142 projects across the state were awarded by the governor in May.

Mosley said the remainder of the funds for the Griggs Center pool will come from a grant from the Callaway Foundation and SPLOST funds.

The bid was unanimously approved by the commissioners.