Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 9

177 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9 environmental initiatives don’t stop there. BM&K Construction and Engineering is currently building a new 32,000 square foot Public Safety Building with geothermal heating and cooling. Possibly, the largest geothermal commercial building in Atlanta. Another unique initiative in Brookhaven is the Tree Rescue Program. A city building inspector who loves trees convinced Sigman to start a municipal tree nursery. “We take our tree canopy pretty seriously in Brookhaven,” Sigman says. “What this staff member did was genius; occasionally there are some really nice trees on construction sites that are going to get cut down and up to a certain size, pretty big ones, we can relocate them. Paying for it on our dime, we’ll either relocate them directly to a park or take them to the municipal tree nursery and save them for another project.” Some trees that are 15 to 20 years old have been recently relocated from a hospital expansion project into a park. It’s a proud attribute of Brookhaven that parks are well taken care of in the city, and they are working to ensure those parks are connected by sidewalks, multi-use paths and trails. But it’s not going as quickly as Sigman would like, because the city has to purchase private property and relocate utilities to make it happen. There are four major activity areas and 19 parks in the city to be connected and they are making progress with multi-use paths along major corridors. Sigman notes, “Mayor Ernst and the City Council approved a Sustainable Brookhaven strategy that provides strategic direction, guidance and funding for these sustainability initiatives.” In the next two years, the city hopes to complete a $40 million park improvement project, which improves six parks. In that time frame, Sigman also wants to ensure the new Public Safety Building is complete and the police have moved in. And he wants to find a permanent location for City Hall, as Brookhaven has rented a location BROOKHAVEN, GEORGI A since its inception. Boasting that Brookhaven has the best roads in Georgia, City Manager Sigman also thinks it’s one of the best cities in the metropolitan area. He shares, “We’ve improved our roads and infrastructure every year. There are approximately 300 cities and counties in the metropolitan area, and we like to think that Brookhaven punches above our weight class in a lot of different categories for a city that’s only nine years old.”