Long-awaited improvements to McEver Road in South Hall County might start to take shape after all, spanning over the next year.

An agreement with Flowery Branch to improve the traffic artery’s crossing at Jim Crow Road/Gainesville Street, along with work on Gainesville Street, was approved Thursday night by the Hall County Board of Commissioners.

The issue now goes before Flowery Branch City Council at its Nov. 5 meeting.

With the city’s OK, “it’ll take a year to finish everything,” said Ken Rearden, Hall County’s public works and utilities director.

The work consists of adding right- and left-turn lanes at the busy intersection, which is dotted by businesses and is near neighborhoods, Alberta Banks Park and Flowery Branch Elementary School.

Also planned is a rebuilding of Gainesville Street, a long-established road that leads to downtown Flowery Branch, and McEver Road to Buford. McEver also will be rebuilt — through a road reclamation process that uses recycled materials — to Oakwood’s southern city limits.

All totaled, the work will cost nearly $4 million, with funding coming from state sources and the special purpose local option sales tax.

Flowery Branch City Manager Bill Andrew said he is thankful the project is moving forward.

“We’ve needed to pave (Gainesville Street) for quite some time, and traffic at that intersection has been increasing,” he said. “It’s definitely needed.”

Talks about improving the intersection can be traced to December 2004, when SPLOST money was designated to cover engineering and right of way costs for signalized turn lanes up and down McEver Road.

The project later expanded to include fixes to McEver, which serves as a major north-south corridor, basically connecting Gainesville to Buford and passing by a slew of business, industries, schools and homes.

Over the past few years, road conditions have steadily gotten worse, particularly with pavement cracking.

Officials are concerned about the extent of repairs that can be done during the winter — not an ideal time to lay asphalt.

“We’ll do our best to move this thing along,” Rearden said. “I know Flowery Branch is anxious to get Gainesville Street done first, so we’ll probably (do that) first.”

Hall hopes to rebuild McEver Road farther north, from around Radford Road in Flowery Branch to Flat Creek Road in Oakwood next summer.

“We want to get (an agreement done) with Oakwood early before we get this thing out to bid,” Rearden said.