forsyth development news
What Is Under Construction in Cumming and Forsyth County?
Four road projects are actually in the ground in Forsyth County right now: the GA 400 express lanes, the Highway 20 widening west of Post Road, Old Atlanta Road phases 4 and 5, and phase 1 of the McGinnis Ferry Road widening. Everything else you have heard about, Post Road included, is still on paper.
That gap between what is announced and what is being built is the whole story, and it is worth knowing which side of it your commute, or your land, sits on. The lists below come from Forsyth County’s own project register and Georgia DOT’s project dashboards, both of which publish a phase and a status for every project. We covered the 2026 slate in 2026 Projects to Watch. This is where it all stands now.
Under construction now
| Project | Where | Status | Schedule and cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| GA 400 express lanes | North Springs MARTA station to just north of McFarland Parkway, about 16 miles | Under construction since spring 2026 | Work runs through 2031 |
| Highway 20 widening | West of Post Road to east of North Corners Parkway | Under construction, 31.20 percent complete | Six lanes with a 20 foot raised median. $133.9 million estimate |
| Old Atlanta Road, phases 4 and 5 | James Burgess Road to St. Marlo Country Club Parkway | Construction in progress since January 2022 | Two lanes to four. $68.5 million. Open to traffic winter 2028 |
| McGinnis Ferry Road, phase 1 | Douglas Road to Hospital Parkway at the Fulton line | Construction in progress since May 2025 | $52.4 million. Spring 2028 |
| Water and sewer maintenance warehouse | County Way campus | Construction in progress since July 2021 | Fall 2026 |
| Big Creek Greenway improvements | Big Creek Greenway | Construction, status varies by component | Ongoing |
The GA 400 express lanes are the largest by a wide margin. Georgia DOT and its private partner, SR 400 Peach Partners, started work in spring 2026 on about 16 miles from the North Springs MARTA station to just north of McFarland Parkway, with construction running through 2031. North of McGinnis Ferry Road, the Forsyth stretch, it is one express lane in each direction rather than two.
Old Atlanta Road is the quiet one. The county has been widening it from two lanes to four since January 2022, at an estimated $68.5 million, and does not expect it open to traffic until winter 2028. Six years of construction on one road is a useful reminder of what these timelines actually look like.
In design, not yet built
| Project | Where | Phase | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post Road south widening | Highway 9 to Kelly Mill Road, 3.64 miles | Final design | Construction listed for summer 2026, project estimated complete winter 2031 |
| Post Road north widening | Kelly Mill Road to Highway 20, 2.38 miles | Preliminary design | Design alone runs to winter 2028 |
| McGinnis Ferry Road, phase 2 | Union Hill Road to Douglas Road | Final design | Design complete summer 2026 |
| Fire department training and logistics center | 35 acre county site | Preconstruction, started April 2026 | $58.8 million. Winter 2028 |
| Court buildings and sheriff’s office headquarters | County government complex | Final design | Summer 2027 |
| Highway 369 passing lanes | Cherokee County line to Wallace Tatum Road | Project startup | Design complete winter 2028 |
| Highway 9 at Punch Hammond Road | Intersection improvements | Preliminary design | Construction to be determined, completion March 2029 |
| Pilgrim Mill Road multi use trail | Eight foot path, Holtzclaw Road to Tidwell Park | Right of way acquisition | Design and right of way to winter 2028 |
| Water intake facility | Forsyth County water system | Varies by component, started 2022 | 2031 |
Post Road is the one worth reading twice. It is two separate projects. The south segment, Highway 9 to Kelly Mill Road, is 3.64 miles of two lanes widened to four with a 16 foot raised median, a five foot sidewalk on the west side and a ten foot multi use trail on the east. The county has it in Final Design, shows construction starting in summer 2026, and estimates the whole project complete in winter 2031. Georgia DOT’s dashboard still shows construction at 0 percent, so nothing has broken ground yet. The north segment, Kelly Mill Road to Highway 20, is a further 2.38 miles and is only in Preliminary Design, with design alone running to winter 2028.
Note also that the Pilgrim Mill Road project is not a road widening. It is an eight foot multi use path on the north side of Pilgrim Mill Road from Holtzclaw Road to Tidwell Park, and it is in right of way acquisition.
What just finished, and why the traffic feels different
The Highway 369 widening and the new GA 400 interchange at Exit 18 is a $70 million project that took Highway 369 from two lanes to four, from west of the Highway 9 and 369 intersection to 1,500 feet east of GA 400. The State Road and Tollway Authority reported it 99 percent complete and open to traffic as of June 2026. The Coal Mountain Connector, 1.34 miles from Highway 9 to Highway 369, finished its punchlist on October 30, 2025 at a cost of $8.8 million. The Ronald Reagan Boulevard extension, $37.2 million, is open. The Bethelview Road widening from Castleberry Road to Highway 20 is logged as complete.
The county’s own $114 million administration campus at Freedom Park is finished. Forsyth County dedicated it and held public open houses in March 2026, and county offices have moved.
The private projects on the ground
Life Time, 7127 Post Road. The athletic country club at Post Road and Highway 9 has its conditional use permit, approved August 20, 2026, and a site development permit in county review. As of October 22, 2026 the county had no building permit on file. Full detail in When Is Life Time Opening in Forsyth County?
Forsyth Town Center, 3135 Ronald Reagan Boulevard. Whole Foods opens in February 2027, confirmed to Crawford Lands by Fuqua Development. Audi Forsyth County and Chipotle are already open. See When Is Whole Foods Opening in Cumming?
Southard Exchange, Bethelview and Castleberry. Chick-fil-A opened October 1, 2026. Shake Shack, 7 Brew, Maepole and Fifth Third Bank hold the other spaces. See What Is Being Built at Bethelview and Castleberry Road
Cloverhill at Cumming City Center, 519 Canton Road. Toll Brothers has site work underway on 315 townhomes and detached houses in three collections, within walking distance of the City Center, expected to open for sale in spring 2027.
The Crossing at Coal Mountain, 4280 Waylon Drive. Toll Brothers opened two new townhome collections there in July 2026, Cottonwood from the upper $400,000s and Haven from the low $500,000s, alongside single family homes already selling. Toll Brothers markets the community by its access to GA 400’s new Exit 18.
Approved, but not yet under construction
The Gathering at South Forsyth belongs in its own category. Forsyth County approved the roughly $3 billion mixed use plan with an arena built to NHL standards in June 2025, and the county has since agreed a funding plan, but the arena still turns on an NHL decision and the project has not broken ground. We will cover where it actually stands in a post of its own.
What this means for Forsyth County land
Count the two lists again. Six projects are in the ground. Nine are still in design or right of way acquisition. That ratio is the single most useful thing on this page for anyone who owns land here.
The second is the timeline. Post Road south started design in November 2022 and the county now estimates the project complete in winter 2031. That is nine years from the first design contract to the last lane of asphalt, on a road everyone in west Forsyth already treats as a done deal. Old Atlanta Road has been under construction since January 2022 and opens to traffic in 2028. Design to pavement in this county runs five to nine years, and a road in Preliminary Design is a decade away.
For a landowner that cuts both ways. A widening that is still in design will not fix your access any time soon, so do not price your tract as though it is finished. But entitlement value moves on the announcement and the funding, not on the ribbon cutting, and every one of these corridors is commercial or arterial while the county’s residential rezoning moratorium runs through April 13, 2027. The land that is repricing right now is frontage on a funded corridor with commercial or office zoning already in place.
Exit 18 shows how quickly that reads through. GA 400’s newest interchange opened and a national homebuilder immediately started marketing a Coal Mountain community by its proximity. Expect the same at Post Road and Highway 9 when that contract is finally let, which is a large part of why Life Time bought in ahead of it.
If you own land on one of these corridors and want to know what the road work does to your number, call us at 404-983-6710 or start with what your land is worth.
Frequently asked questions
What road projects are under construction in Forsyth County right now?
Four. The GA 400 express lanes, Highway 20 from west of Post Road to east of North Corners Parkway, Old Atlanta Road phases 4 and 5 from James Burgess Road to St. Marlo Country Club Parkway, and McGinnis Ferry Road phase 1 from Douglas Road to Hospital Parkway. Everything else on the county’s project register is still in design or right of way acquisition.
What is the biggest construction project in Cumming right now?
The GA 400 express lanes. It covers about 16 miles from the North Springs MARTA station to just north of McFarland Parkway, construction started in spring 2026, and the work runs through 2031. The Forsyth County stretch north of McGinnis Ferry Road gets one express lane in each direction.
When does the Post Road widening start?
It has not started. Forsyth County lists the south segment, Highway 9 to Kelly Mill Road, in Final Design with construction shown as beginning in summer 2026 and the project estimated to finish in winter 2031. The state project dashboard still shows construction at 0 percent. The north segment, Kelly Mill Road to Highway 20, is only in Preliminary Design, with design alone running to winter 2028.
What is being built on Old Atlanta Road?
Forsyth County is widening Old Atlanta Road from two lanes to four between James Burgess Road and St. Marlo Country Club Parkway. The county lists it as Construction in Progress, started in January 2022, estimated at $68.5 million, and open to traffic in winter 2028.
Is Bethelview Road still under construction?
No. The widening from Castleberry Road to Highway 20, 5.02 miles, is logged as complete. A next phase of Bethelview Road has been announced but is not on the county’s current project register, and we will cover its limits, cost and schedule separately.
What happened to Frankie’s Fun Park?
It was announced for Highway 9 and Bethelview Road with work expected to begin in 2026, and we covered it in our June roundup. We could not verify a construction start or a building permit for it as of October 2026, so treat it as announced rather than underway.
Sources
Forsyth County, Major Construction Projects, the county’s own register of every project and its phase, status, start date, estimated completion and cost: https://www.forsythco.com/government/major-construction-projects/
Georgia DOT GeoPI project dashboard, PI 0003682, SR 20 from Post Road to east of North Corners Parkway: https://www.dot.ga.gov/applications/geopi/Pages/Dashboard.aspx?ProjectId=0003682
Georgia DOT GeoPI project dashboard, PI 0006915, Post Road from SR 9 to Kelly Mill Road: https://www.dot.ga.gov/applications/geopi/Pages/Dashboard.aspx?ProjectId=0006915
Georgia DOT GeoPI project dashboard, PI 0009316, Bethelview Road from Castleberry Road to SR 20: https://www.dot.ga.gov/applications/geopi/Pages/Dashboard.aspx?ProjectId=0009316
Georgia DOT, SR 400 Express Lanes fact sheet: https://www.dot.ga.gov/systems/ProjectDocuments/0001757_SR400/SR400GEL-FactSheet.pdf
AASHTO Journal, "Georgia DOT Breaks Ground on SR 400 Express Lanes," April 2026: https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/?p=40136
AccessNorthGA, "Forsyth Co. lanes of SR 400 to close next week for express lane work," June 2026: https://accessnorthga.com/news/forsyth-co-lanes-of-sr-400-to-close-next-week-for-express-lane-work
Georgia DOT, Transportation Funding Act FY 2027 to 2028 Project Forecast: https://www.dot.ga.gov/InvestSmart/TransportationFundingAct/Documents/Forecast/TFAForecast.pdf
State Road and Tollway Authority, June 2026 semi annual report: https://srta.ga.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Final-June-2026-Semi-Annual.pdf
Forsyth County, "Forsyth County to Dedicate New Freedom Park Campus and Provide Open Houses to Public," March 2026: https://www.forsythco.com/news/2026/03/forsyth-county-to-dedicate-new-freedom-park-campus-and-provide-open-houses-to-public/
Appen Media, "Forsyth County approves $114 million administration campus construction": https://www.appenmedia.com/forsyth/forsyth-county-approves-114-million-administration-campus-construction/article_96f12a12-b18a-11ee-9c4f-7b9a99d6b6a5.html
Toll Brothers, "Toll Brothers Announces Cloverhill at Cumming City Center Coming Soon to Cumming, Georgia," September 2026: https://www.tollbrothers.com/blog/cloverhill-at-cumming-city-center-cumming-georgia-coming-soon
Toll Brothers, "Toll Brothers Opens Two New Townhome Collections at The Crossing at Coal Mountain in Cumming, Georgia," July 2026: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/07/07/3323577/1924/en/toll-brothers-opens-two-new-townhome-collections-at-the-crossing-at-coal-mountain-in-cumming-georgia.html
Atlanta News First, "Forsyth County approves plan for $3B mixed-use development with arena meant to attract NHL team," June 2025: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/06/12/forsyth-county-approves-plan-mixed-use-development-with-arena-meant-attract-nhl-team/
Whole Foods opening of February 2027 confirmed to Crawford Lands by Fuqua Development, October 2026.
Crawford Lands, LLC is a licensed real estate brokerage in the State of Georgia, license #81852. This article is general information, not legal, tax or appraisal advice. Project schedules, costs and opening dates change; confirm anything you rely on with Forsyth County, the Georgia Department of Transportation or the developer. Contact us.
Own land near where Forsyth County is growing? Start with what it is worth.
Or get the Forsyth County land sales and zoning reports by email: sign up here.