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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 2:34 AM
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Atlanta Parks

Hey Atlanta Lovers,
I’m doing a project on City of Atlanta Parks and Stone Mountain. If you have good information please feel free to post it. Also, in the past I have seen some wonderful pictures of parks around the city and I would greatly appreciate it if the people who posted them would either repost them or direct me to the thread where they are located.

Thanks

Piedmont Park









Centenial Park







Stone Mountain Park




Any info on this project?


And of course the future of ATL, hopefully that is.



These parks don’t just have an effect on the city as a whole, they often times spur development near them. This is another aspect that I am curious in. I know that Centennial has seen many great things going on around it lately. Also, are there any new parks planned?
Thanks
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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 3:27 AM
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The city's largest park is Chastain, I believe, and they've recently released a new master plan. It's online at the Chastain Park Conservancy.
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  #3  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 3:28 AM
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The City of Atlanta recently completed the purchase of the land that the Bellwood Quarry sits on (or in?). This will be turned into a water reservoir and surrounded by more than 300 acres, I believe, which would make it the largest park in the city, by a considerable margin. The land is on the west side of Atlanta and the park will be known as Westside Park. Here is an article about it in the Atlanta Business Chronicle: http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlan...6/daily43.html

There are many other pockets of land dotted along the proposed path of the beltline that will, hopefully, one day be turned into parkland. You can find more info at www.beltline.org .

The Trust for Public Land is probably more active in Atlanta right now than any other city in the country.

The next to last picture you show is the 5th St. bridge near GA Tech. This project is finished.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 3:48 AM
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Interesting....this article on the city's website does not recognize Chastain as one of the larger city parks. I am guessing it has to do with the fact that most of Chastain is a golf course?

http://www.atlantaga.gov/media/nr_quary_063006.aspx
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 7:12 AM
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Freedom Park is one of Atlanta's newest green spaces and one of my favorites, built around the Carter Center and Freedom Pkwy. In the google earth image, Freedom Pkwy runs North-South and the park is all of the green space on both sides of the parkway...you can see the bike paths throughout the park. Then in the middle part of the photo the park turns to the East and encompasses the Carter Center (the circles) at the bottom of the photo. Freedom Park has some nice open grassy areas and some shady spots with large older trees. The area around the Carter Center is beautifully landscaped with a Japanese Garden, a Peace Garden and a Rose Garden. The photos are from flickr...there are lots more.







Peace Garden



Reflecting Pool
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 7:37 AM
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Woodruff Park is located Downtown across Peachtree Street from Fairlie-Poplar and beside Georgia State campus. It has some great fountains and statues. Because of its central location, Woodruff draws political rallies, coporate outings, fundraisers, protests, students, lunch eaters, and homeless folks.










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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 8:23 AM
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Hurt Park is the entrance to Georgia State University, located across Courtland Street from Alumni Hall and behind Hurt Plaza. There is a beautiful fountain in center of the photo...I couldn't find a good photo of the fountain.


(flickr)
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  #8  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 1:25 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg View Post
Any info on this project?

This is the 5th street bridge and was completed last year. It connects the GA Tech campus with Midtown and GREATLY improved the pedestrian experience crossing the freeway.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 2:31 PM
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the 5th Street Bridge has vines growing on the vine stands now and the grass is dying due to lack of watering. No other new news on it.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 4:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NativeAtlantan View Post
Interesting....this article on the city's website does not recognize Chastain as one of the larger city parks. I am guessing it has to do with the fact that most of Chastain is a golf course?

http://www.atlantaga.gov/media/nr_quary_063006.aspx
Probably because the park is in Buckhead. Chastain is the largest park in the city, but the northside generally ejoys "Least Favored" status when it comes to city government.
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  #11  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2007, 6:02 PM
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From ChastainParkConservancy.org:

Quote:
Chastain is a 260+ acre park, the largest in the City of Atlanta, in a highly underserved area with a growing population that includes multifamily residents. There are no other regional parks from Chamblee to Vinings, from Peachtree Creek to Sandy Springs.

Chastain Park is an historic park, designed to be a world-class park with state of the art recreational facilities in its heyday in the 1940s. Those facilities—the horse park, pool, golf course, tennis center, and amphitheatre—have expanded to serve thousands of people every year. The newest additions to the park are the recreation center, added in the 1970s, the 3.4 miles of PATH, added in the 1990s, and a children’s playground added in its current location in 2000, combining to bring in hundreds more to the park every month. The variety of recreational offerings makes Chastain one of the most diverse of any of the City parks.
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Old Posted Oct 20, 2007, 2:32 PM
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greg - there are still quite a few parks to consider such as grant park and candler park. i think okland cemetery is even part of the city's park system.

you can find a full list of ATL city parks at:

http://www.atlantaga.gov/government/...locations.aspx
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  #13  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2007, 4:38 PM
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Great, thanks so much for the input guys. I sure do love the foliage in your area of the country. One question, if the beltline does happen, would Marta then have a complete beltline around the city? Or, will they siply go around the upper half?
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Old Posted Oct 20, 2007, 10:41 PM
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It isn't planned for MARTA to be in charge of the Beltline transit, but I bet in the end MARTA will be operating it. The Beltline will make a complete crooked 22-mile circle through dozens of the city's historic neighborhoods...and will have transfer stations where it intersects with MARTA. It seems pretty certain the Beltline will materialize...the city has been purchasing the land for it and working deals for a couple of years. The first phases of it actually began today.

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Old Posted Oct 21, 2007, 3:32 AM
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[QUOTE=sprtsluvr8;3117039]It isn't planned for MARTA to be in charge of the Beltline transit, but I bet in the end MARTA will be operating it. The Beltline will make a complete crooked 22-mile circle through dozens of the city's historic neighborhoods...and will have transfer stations where it intersects with MARTA. It seems pretty certain the Beltline will materialize...the city has been purchasing the land for it and working deals for a couple of years. The first phases of it actually began today.

Pretty optimistic of yah. People are still calling it a pipe dream despite the progress to date.
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Old Posted Oct 21, 2007, 5:33 AM
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Pretty optimistic of yah. People are still calling it a pipe dream despite the progress to date.
Some people are pessimistic...though I'm not sure how that kind of thinking benefits us. I've heard a few people make comments about it being a dream (mostly on this forum), but most discussion I've heard has been positive and exciting. I don't see why the Beltline seems impossible to some. From yesterday's AJC:

Quote:
Beltline work begins
Volunteers to start blazing trail in southwest Atlanta

By Paul Donsky
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 10/20/07

Work is to begin today on the first stretch of Atlanta's Beltline project, two years after the massive redevelopment effort won approval from city, county and school officials.

Granted, it's a modest starting point: a 1.7-mile walking and biking trail in southwest Atlanta, a tiny portion of what is envisioned to be a more than 30-mile path snaking through dozens of intown neighborhoods. Volunteers will begin clearing debris from the trail's route today; it likely will be decades before the entire Beltline is completed.

But as a first step, the project holds symbolic importance, officials say.

"It's a very important beginning for us," said Tina Arbes, chief operating officer of BeltLine Inc. "It becomes a real demonstration of what the whole Beltline project is all about."

The Beltline is a $2.8 billion effort to turn largely abandoned freight railroad corridors that circle downtown Atlanta into a loop offering 33 miles of trails, 22 miles of transit, parks and new development.

Today's cleanup in southwest Atlanta promises to transform weedy patches, trash-strewn lots and kudzu-choked thickets into a linear park with manicured lawns, paved and lighted paths, and new trees planted by Trees Atlanta. Existing parks along the route will get spruced up as well.

Interest in the cleanup has been so strong that all volunteer slots for today have been filled.

The path will wind through the West End and Westview neighborhoods. Construction is expected to begin early next year and last about eight months.

Westview resident Scott Smith said he hopes the new trail helps revitalize his neighborhood, which has been hit hard by foreclosures.

"It should mark a significant turnaround for the community's development," said Smith, who plans to take part in the cleanup. "It will get rid of the kudzu and stop the illegal dumping ... and get more people interested in looking at the community."

The project is significant in that it's the first part of the Beltline that people will be able to see and use, said Ed McBrayer, executive director of the nonprofit PATH Foundation, which is working with BeltLine Inc. and overseeing the development of the southwest Atlanta trail.

Much of the work on the Beltline up to this point has taken place behind the scenes, as officials worked to secure land for future parks, obtain right of way, and begin the extensive planning process that will determine how the finished product will look and feel.

That's led some people to wonder whether the Beltline was happening at all, McBrayer said.

The trail "will give credibility to the Beltline," he said. "This will make it real. All of this work isn't just a pipe dream."
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  #17  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2007, 6:24 PM
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Botanical Gardens Expansion Begins

Botanical garden to grow a dream
$30 million renovation will transform fancy into fact

By MARK DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/22/07

The new garden. It's still the stuff of dreams, where walkways wind through trees and rooftops are refuges for wild things.

But the earthmovers are coming; behind them will be hard-hats, botanists and green-thumb types who can take fancy and make it fact. In two years, if all goes according to plans, they will transform the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
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Last week, the city issued the first of several permits that will allow the botanical garden to go ahead with most of a $30 million renovation for the 31-year-old garden.

The pending changes, says Mary Pat Matheson, the garden's executive director, are "transformational."

The plans for the 30-acre site include a new visitors center, a multi-use pedestrian path and a cistern so large it has to be built underground.

Also given a green light: a parking deck the garden will share with its neighbor, Piedmont Park. A judge last month dismissed the final count of a lawsuit challenging the parking deck, clearing the way for the most controversial segment of the garden's plans.

The garden's current parking facility, a one-acre lot that can hold about 120 cars, will be demolished in 2010. A garden featuring edible plants will spread roots in its place.

The botanical garden also plans something no American horticultural exhibit can boast. The Canopy Walk, an elevated path, will curl through the hardwoods of Storza Woods, a 12-acre stand of tall trees on the botanical garden's western edge. At places, it will rise 45 feet from the ground, allowing visitors to see the garden — the city, too — as a bird would.

"This is a very massive undertaking," said Matheson, who launched a private fund-raising campaign in 2005 to make the improvements. "It is an absolutely transformational time for the garden and the city."

Following are quick looks at Phase 1 of the garden's master plan — its parking deck, visitors center, Canopy Walk, multi-use path and the Southern Seasons Garden. They're scheduled to debut in spring 2009.

New deck

The STOP THE DECK signs wave in the gusts caused by traffic passing to and from the garden and Piedmont Park. But the deck has not been stalled. In August, a Fulton Superior Court judge dismissed four of five counts in a lawsuit filed by Friends of Piedmont Park Inc. and its CEO, Doug Abramson. The final count, alleging that the garden's deck plans were subject to the state's Open Records Act, got dismissed a month later. A judge said the nonprofit botanical garden sought the parking deck independent of the city, so it did not have to open its records. (In the same ruling, the judge declared that some of the Piedmont Park Conservancy's plans are subject to the open records law. The conservancy oversees the park's operation and maintenance.)

The new deck will cost about $19 million. It will be built on a tangle of kudzu on the eastern edge of the garden, a sloping tract that Piedmont Park handed over. In exchange, the garden gave the park 3.3 acres, a slice of woodland along Westminster Drive.

Plans call for a six-story structure largely covered with greenery, that will serve the garden and park. It will hold about 750 vehicles. Garden officials say it will be "green" — a structure that catches rainwater to be re-used for irrigation, a building screened with trees and other shrubbery. Matheson promises it will nearly vanish under a canopy of leaf and limb.

Motorists traveling to Piedmont Park will follow a tunnel directing them to the lower floors of the deck. Botanical garden visitors will drive into the structure's top level.

Visitors center

It's 10,000 square feet, spreading like a multilevel garden. Artist's renditions of the garden's new center, located in the eastern reaches of the tract, depict a structure as heavy on green stems as it is on gray steel. Its soil-covered roof will abound with native bushes and other flora.

The $6 million building, located close to the parking facility, will have dual purposes — conservation and education.

The conservation aspect, said Matheson, will be apparent in its construction: with a "green" roof covering almost half the new structure, a verdant plain that avoids rainwater runoff. Plans also call for the center to rely on the most old-fashioned method of cooling. It will be built with doors facing each other from opposite ends — a large-scale version of the breezeways once synonymous with so many stately Southern homes.

The building will house classes that emphasize our natural surroundings, and children will be urged to do something their parents would never say: Get on the roof. There, said Matheson, they can study plant species native to the South.

Canopy Walk

The walkway bends like a ribbon that has floated from the sky and landed among the limbs of a tree. Canopy Walk is a 600-foot stroll through the boughs of Storza Woods, where old hardwoods rustle in the wind. A system of steel cables erected on masts, it is a study in tension and grace. No other botanical garden in America has one.

Plans call for the walk in the trees to begin at the Southern Seasons Garden and head into the Storza woodlands. Its designers want it to rise and fall so that visitors can get a close look at springtime's buds and fall's foliage. They'll also pass close to birds and other animals that live in Storza's folds.

"It will be magnificent," Matheson said.

Multi-use path

The path will be a sort of pedestrian/bicyclist's freeway linking the garden and Piedmont Avenue to Piedmont Park. Plans call for a 12-foot-wide trail, most likely built of concrete. It will rise and wind with the hillsides, and will take joggers, strollers and others away from traffic.

Southern Seasons Garden

This will comprise five acres, spread out in front of the new visitors center. Plans call for the wooded tract to be planted with new bushes and trees. They'll be selected for their color — spring, summer and fall — and their visual interest.

By standing in front of the center, according to garden plans, visitors can take in the entire garden, a green reminder of the changing seasons in the South.

Other projects

Crews are already on site at the garden, cutting a few trees and laying mulch for a temporary pedestrian path that will divert visitors from two years or more of construction.

In 2010, the garden will turn its attention to the one-acre parking lot currently in use near its administration building. Machinery will rip apart the blacktop, revealing dirt that hasn't felt sunlight in three decades. Site plans call for an edible-plant garden where vegetables and fruits spread blooms, grow and are harvested. The produce, native to the southeastern United States, will be used in cooking workshops and food tastings. Just below the edible garden will be the cascades garden, teeming with flowers. And below that, collecting rainwater, will be a retention pond.

Nearby, stretching under Loop Road, will be a cistern so large it's the equivalent of a subterranean pond. It will be 10 feet deep and wide, and 125 long — a 95,000-gallon rain barrel, or cistern, to water the garden's plants.

The changes, said Matheson, are necessary to keep the garden — its support, too — growing.

"This had to be a great vision" for the garden, Matheson said. "We think it is."
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  #18  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2007, 7:49 PM
Andrea Andrea is offline
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Stone Mountain Park

Stone Mountain Park is excellent. We played golf there yesterday and the big rock makes an absolutely spectacular backdrop from just about any point on the course. Where else can you line up a 12 foot putt with giant images of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson looking over your shoulder?

Although they're not in the city, two of my other favorite area parks are Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. By Atlanta standards neither one is very far out.
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  #19  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2007, 9:20 PM
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Great news about the botanical garden. Wow!
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  #20  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2007, 12:24 AM
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excellent news about the garden, probably my favorite attraction in atlanta.

it's going to be amazing when both the garden and the park finish their expansions.

who's calling the beltline a pipedream??? there's been some rather real progress with the beltline.
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