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Atlanta Seeks Input On Future Memorial Drive Park

July 25th, 2016

Nonprofit Park Pride is seeking public feedback on a potential linear park between Oakland Cemetery and downtown Atlanta. But exact plans for the three-quarter-mile greenway on Memorial Drive are far from concrete.

One thing that’s up in the air: What to do with businesses now operating in the proposed park’s path?

“We’re aware that there are businesses that currently operate in the land that was identified as the future park,” says Andrew White, Park Pride’s director of park visioning, “and I know that the plan is not to evict anybody who is not a willing seller of their land.”

Places like Daddy D’z BBQ could potentially operate in concert with a park, says Greg Giuffrida, Memorial Drive Corridor executive with Central Atlanta Progress.

“I think we’ve always thought about this traditional idea of like, the National Mall, where you have this pure greenspace … I think there are also a lot of valid arguments for having active uses within these green spaces,” Giuffrida says.

The final look of the park is not yet set in stone. Instead, Park Pride calls this stage a “visioning plan” to let the community decide what the greenway would look like.

Park Pride is inviting public input through January via a series of public meetings and an online survey.

However, the city’s considered one version or another of such a park since the mid-1970s. “And this project has actually gone by many names over the years,” says White, including Capitol Gateway Park, Oakland Capitol Greenway, Martin Luther King Greenway and Oakland Promenade.

During those years, the city bought up land between Oakland Cemetery and the Downtown Connector. It now owns 3.6 acres on five lots.

White says the current burst of development along Memorial Drive made this a good time to revisit the idea.