CORDELE — Efforts to establish the city as a permanent satellite campus for Darton College highlighted Tuesday night’s Cordele City Commission meeting.

Cordele-Crisp Chamber of Commerce higher education committee chairman Bob Evans said that since the Darton satellite campus was launched here seven years ago enrollment has grown to 300 full-time students.

During that time Evans said the chamber has raised over $900,000 to fund Darton as a permanent satellite facility, having to provide and maintain a building and to supplement any deficit during its early years of operation.

“We want to re-vitalize downtown Cordele and towards that end have a written agreement for over a $2 million donation of land as Perlis Properties has given us two-thirds of three city blocks,” Evans said.

The area to which he was referring lies from Cordele Recreation Parlor (better known as the pool room) and the Southern Railroad tracks to the west as well as 11th and 12th Avenues on the south and Wall Street on the north.

Evans, who was accompanied to the meeting by fellow committee members Monica Simmons and Billy Cannon, said chamber officials had initially planned to ask the city and county commissions as well as the Crisp County Power Commission to provide $16,000 in master planning money for the project.

Just this week, though, he said the United Industrial Development Authority had given $4,000, leaving a need of $12,000 that would be equally split between the three aforementioned bodies. The city promptly agreed to provide its share.

The total $16,000 request would cover the cost of hiring a consultant who among other things would develop a budget. It would also allow for the employment of an architect as well as structural engineers.

“Our No. 1 priority,” Evans said after the commission’s action, “is to get Darton College completed in downtown Cordele. We have applied for five different grants (one has already been submitted and the other four are in the process of being formulated).

“Our job is to build a building, donate it to the university system and then allow it to take over operations. We would like for it to look like a true college campus that would be attractive to students.

“If we’re successful in efforts to get our permanent campus constructed, current Darton College president Peter Sireno is confident that within five years we can grow from our current 300 students to over 1,000. This would be huge for our community.”

Darton currently has 5,600 students enrolled in its Albany campus and Cordele satellite location. That compares with the approximately 2,400 students enrolled at Georgia Southwestern and the 1,800 now attending Albany State.

In other action, city commissioners:

— Heard from Simmons that the chamber and tourism committee are working with the Department of Transportation on an I-75 beautification project. More details will be revealed later.

—Proclaimed Oct. 19 as Public Safety Appreciation Day in which those involved in that field of work will be special guests at a dinner gathering.