Hickory Flat Highway Gateway Concept Plan

Purpose of Project

The Hickory Flat Highway corridor serves as a critical transportation artery and a primary connection between Interstate 575 and Downtown Canton. Despite its strategic importance as a gateway to the city's historic downtown and the Sunnyside neighborhood, longstanding mobility, safety, and land-use challenges have prevented the corridor from fulfilling its potential.

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The Hickory Flat Highway Gateway Concept Plan (HFGCP) was developed to address these challenges and transform Hickory Flat Highway into a safe, multimodal gateway that supports walkability, encourages mixed-use development, and strengthens connectivity between the corridor and Canton's historic downtown.

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Our Role on the Project

Modern Mobility Partners (MMP) served as the prime consultant for the HFGCP, taking the lead role in project management, stakeholder engagement, planning, and site design. MMP was responsible for the comprehensive planning process that concluded in July 2025. MMP's role encompassed multiple critical functions that ensured the project's success. MMP also coordinated the interdisciplinary planning process, ensuring that transportation improvements, land use planning, urban design, and economic development strategies were seamlessly integrated. Throughout the project, MMP collaborated closely with City staff, the DDA, and other stakeholders to ensure that the final recommendations were technically sound and politically feasible.

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Problem Solvers

The Hickory Flat Highway corridor presented a complex set of overlapping challenges, including flood hazard mitigation, utilities coordination, railroad crossings, topographic constraints, and multi-jurisdictional regulatory requirements spanning GDOT, FEMA, and local zoning. MMP addressed these through a 'complete corridor' methodology that treated transportation, land use, placemaking, and community development as interconnected issues rather than isolated problems. Flooding was reimagined as an opportunity, with green infrastructure and floodable parks serving dual stormwater and recreational functions. Anti-displacement strategies were integrated throughout to ensure improvements benefited existing residents and businesses, particularly in the Sunnyside neighborhood, rather than displacing them.