Five years ago, DeKalb County exchanged about a quarter of the land in one of its public parks – including the park entrance – with a company seeking to expand the footprint of its movie studio.
In return, the company promised the county new land nearby, funds to replace the park, and workforce development opportunities for people who lived in the surrounding predominantly Black neighborhoods.
The Intrenchment Creek Park land swap was controversial at the time. Opponents pushed back on claims about the deal, spoke out at public meetings and staged protests.
Development in the area only became more contentious as the city of Atlanta moved ahead with plans to build its public safety training center on an adjacent property.
The park land, next door to the training center, became a center of the “Stop Cop City” protests. It was somewhere on that property where one protester was shot and killed in 2023.
The nearby public safety training center is now built and in use, and protests have largely died down.
But next door, the broken promises of that earlier controversial plan are still apparent. There’s no new park, no expanded movie studio, no workforce or greenspace funding. The south DeKalb park has now been closed to the public for years, and the land is in disrepair. The park’s entrance area is now covered in chest-high grass, and the concrete multi-use path is chewed up and overrun with pine straw and fallen muscadines.
Now the real estate company that engineered the swap is trying to sell the land for a profit — potentially to a buyer looking to build a data center. Meanwhile, the company’s owner, Ryan Millsap, has announced he is running for a seat in the U.S. Congress.
And while some elected officials have been looking for a way to undo the trade and restore the park, a county official recently said DeKalb County plans to uphold the swap, meaning the former park land could be slated for industrial development.
What is DeKalb County’s stance on the Intrenchment Creek land swap agreement?
The 40 acres at the front of Intrenchment Creek Park — which had been some of the most heavily used acreage in the park — are now owned by Blackhall Real Estate, a company in the portfolio of businessman Ryan Millsap. The other 80 or so acres of the original park still belong to the county, but with no public access points, they’re effectively closed, too.
DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry, who was not in office when the commission approved the land swap deal, introduced a resolution in May of 2025 requesting the county administration to take action to recover the land that had been swapped and ultimately reopen Intrenchment Creek Park for the “environmental health of DeKalb County and the recreation and enjoyment of DeKalb County’s residents and visitors.”
Terry’s predecessor, Kathie Gannon, was the only commissioner at the time who voted against it — although one other commissioner abstained from the vote.
“Hopefully there’s some tweaks and changes to kind of make it whole again,” Terry said during a visit to what had been the park last summer.
But on Dec. 16, 2025, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners voted to withdraw the resolution.
At the meeting, Terry questioned whether the county still had any interest in getting back those 40 acres of Intrenchment Creek Park.
“It would be helpful if we just understood very clearly — is the desire just to complete the contract — the land swap is final, we’ll get our money, Millsap will get his land, and then that issue is done, right?” Terry said. “Because if that’s the case, then we’ll just withdraw this item right now.”
DeKalb County COO Zach Williams said the county’s priority is to follow through with the plans outlined in the land swap agreement: designing and building a new park, called Michelle Obama Park, located on land the county received from Blackhall.
“Our position is we want to utilize the property that we have that was traded in the land swap. We want to make good on what we had assured the community was going to happen,” Williams said.
He said Terry’s resolution isn’t necessary at this point. But if there are opportunities to get back the 40 acres, “that’s something we would discuss,” Williams said.
Soon after, the county attorney asked the commission to “stop this discussion in public right now and have an offline discussion about any further questions that you have on this matter.”
In a statement to WABE, a DeKalb County spokesman said the county “is assessing options related to Intrenchment Creek Park and nearby properties and will provide public updates when available.”
The spokesman did not specify the county’s official stance on getting back the 40 acres that had been Intrenchment Creek Park.
Potential data center buyers eye former park land
But documents WABE received from DeKalb County show that the county is well aware Millsap is trying to sell the land, and that a data center developer was looking to move in.
In February of 2024, Cobb-based Hickory Real Estate Partners contacted DeKalb seeking to confirm that the zoning for Blackhall’s parcel doesn’t preclude a data center. DeKalb sent a letter stating that the zoning was indeed appropriate, though the letter – functioning more like a pre-approval – doesn’t guarantee zoning approval.
And according to court filings from May 2025, Blackhall had buyers lined up for the land — but they were scared off by ongoing court cases regarding the legality of the land swap.
How did the Intrenchment Creek land swap deal unfold?
To understand the current debate over the land swap agreement, its legality, and DeKalb’s options for the future of Intrenchment Creek Park, it’s important to note the complex backstory of the land.
Intrenchment Creek Park was created in 2003 when the nonprofit Trust for Public Land transferred the property to DeKalb County with the condition that it remain a park in perpetuity.
In 2018, real estate developer Ryan Millsap approached DeKalb County with the proposal to donate some of his land in exchange for 40 acres at the front of the park.
Blackhall Real Estate, which owns several parcels of land in DeKalb County, is part of Millsap’s business portfolio. At the time of the swap, Millsap also owned Blackhall Studios, a film production company. Millsap wanted to expand the nearby film production studio and he said the park property worked better for his needs.
After years of discussion, the county commission voted to approve the deal in October 2020 and it was officially signed in January 2021.
Blackhall Real Estate got the land that had been the entrance to Intrenchment Creek Park. In exchange, Blackhall gave DeKalb some of its property nearby and Millsap promised to donate money for DeKalb to make new park facilities elsewhere, as well as other benefits for the community.
In April of 2021, just months after finalizing the land swap deal with DeKalb, Millsap sold Blackhall Studios to a private equity group named Commonwealth Group. But his other company, Blackhall Real Estate, retained the 40 acres from the land swap. The planned studio expansion on the former park land never happened.
“Our position is we want to utilize the property that we have that was traded in the land swap. We want to make good on what we had assured the community was going to happen.”
Zach Williams, DeKalb County Chief Operating Officer
In an interview with the Saporta Report at the time, Millsap said the promises made in the land swap would be up to “the guys who bought it” – though Millsap’s company still owned the land DeKalb had swapped.
The private equity group that bought the film studio then created its own production company, Shadowbox Studios.
Shadowbox told WABE it has nothing to do with the land swap situation.
“Shadowbox Studios has no connection to Intrenchment Creek Park, nor any ongoing negotiations between Ryan Millsap and the county,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email to WABE. “We remain committed to being a positive contributor to the DeKalb County ecosystem and working alongside the Commission on our various collaborations.”
Possible sale of land for profit
Since the deal, the land Millsap, via Blackhall, acquired from DeKalb for the unfulfilled movie studio expansion, has appreciated in value. If Blackhall sells the land, the company could make a significant profit.
At the time of the 2021 deal, the 40 acres were estimated to be worth $2.8 million by Valbridge Property Advisors, the company DeKalb tapped to appraise the land. In exchange, DeKalb received three tracts of land in the deal totaling around 53 acres, which the appraisers valued at about $3.2 million at the time.
That means DeKalb was receiving land worth $400,000 more than it gave to Blackhall.
According to 2025 property tax assessments, the 40 acres Blackhall received, which remain undeveloped, are now worth just under $4.1 million dollars.
Court case questions ownership claims
Blackhall is now trying to cash in on that land value, but the company says an ongoing court case makes that a challenge.
The Atlanta environmental nonprofit, South River Watershed Alliance, along with a few locals, filed a lawsuit under an umbrella group called the South River Forest Coalition not long after the agreement was finalized. They argued DeKalb didn’t have the right to swap the land.
“The community, the public, has a vested interest,” said Jackie Echols, board president of the South River Watershed Alliance. “It was part of the county’s park system.”
Jackie Echols is board president of the South River Watershed Alliance which works to preserve the wildlife and tree canopy in the South River Forest. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
At the time of the land swap, the Trust for Public Land, the group that gave the county the property for the park in the first place, filed paperwork releasing DeKalb from restrictions on the use of the land.
Still, Echols and the others claimed the county didn’t have the right to trade the land away. They said the swap violated the property’s deed to make the land a park — and to keep it that way. They cited the original agreement between DeKalb County, the Trust for Public Land and the Arthur M. Blank Foundation, which gave the money to the Trust to acquire the Intrenchment Creek Park property.
The plaintiffs asked the judge to void the swap and issue an injunction to protect the property from private development.
The lawsuit has dragged on for years. It’s been appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court and remanded back to a lower court. Ultimately, Echols said, her organization couldn’t continue with the court fight.
“We had sunk a small fortune into this case,” she said.
Now, one DeKalb resident, Joel Finegold, is carrying on the lawsuit on his own. He said in his view, the deed the county received from the Trust for Public Land gives the county possession of the property “more as a steward than as an owner.”
That’s because of two provisions written into the deed: that the property will be a park in perpetuity, and that every person who uses the park has a right to defend the deed.
“This is as much a deed belonging to a person who uses the property as it is a deed to the county,” Finegold said.
Echols says the judge overseeing the case has ordered mediation before the end of May.
All the legal wrangling amounts to a problem for Blackhall; it’s hard to sell land when there’s active litigation over who rightfully owns it.
“Liberal Antifa lawsuits and interference halted development and threw the project at Blackhall into chaos for five years costing me tens of millions of dollars,” Millsap wrote in an email to WABE. “As soon as these frivolous lawsuits are resolved, then the issues with the county can be resolved. This is exactly why I am running because the leftist Antifa movement is ruining America.”
Millsap did not comment on promises made to DeKalb connected with the land deal.
So Blackhall is making a legal move to resolve it. Last spring, the company filed a quiet title action. If successful, the move would clear up any question of who owns the property and the outstanding lawsuit.
On May 6, 2025, Blackhall sent legal summons to Echols, Finegold and the other plaintiffs in the original lawsuit, but a court date hasn’t been scheduled yet. The quiet title suit is set to be heard before a special master, an expert the court appoints in complex legal cases. Allie Jett has been tapped to serve as the special master — she founded the Jett Law Group, which specializes in real estate law.
The summons states Blackhall had a potential purchaser “under contract” to buy the 40-acre parcel that had been part of Intrenchment Creek Park.
It said statements from counsel representing the original plaintiffs — South River Forest Coalition and other DeKalb residents — indicated they’d continue their legal fight against Blackhall, which “caused the potential purchaser to terminate the purchase contract.”
Blackhall’s summons says the lawsuit about this property has “rendered Blackhall’s title unmarketable.”
What are residents’ perspectives on the swap?
The swap was controversial from the start. The proposal kicked off contentious public meetings and protests.
For some residents, the deal seemed like a good way to attract new business and growth in a less developed area of DeKalb County.
“If you look prior to the Olympics, Centennial Park didn’t exist,” nearby resident Beverly Danby said at a 2019 town hall. “Now, that is one of the hottest areas in town that attracts people from all over. I think this is an opportunity to create a very diverse community; an opportunity for economic growth.”
Others opposed to the deal were skeptical about the quality of the land Blackhall was offering to trade and doubted that the promised park improvements would be realized.
“We told you it was coming, and you act like, ‘Oh, surprise,’ when he [Millsap] just turned around and sold you out,”
Joe Peery, southeast Atlanta resident and volunteer with Friends of Intrenchment Creek Park
DeKalb resident Laura Kearn said she became familiar with Intrenchment Creek Park because of the land swap and the public safety training center.
“The whole thing was so strange, and that’s one of the reasons I got interested,” Kearn said. “It wasn’t from, you know, stepping my foot on the land at the park, or, frankly, visiting the creek. It was kind of a combination of environmental interests and just, I guess you could say, concern and suspicion of what was going on.”
After she retired, she got more involved. She said she attended events such as a food autonomy festival, learning to identify mushrooms and edible plants, among other community activities. And she came to love the park’s environment and the community she found there.
“I visited the park and enjoyed being at the park, enjoyed learning a little bit about the community that was, you know, hanging out there, doing some social events,” she said.
Although the 40 acres Blackhall bought were supposed to remain accessible to the public until the company began construction, access began to be limited as protests against the public safety training center ramped up on the property. In June of 2022, Millsap put up barriers and no-trespassing signs, but people continued to enter the former park.
Then, in January 2023, Georgia State Patrol troopers killed environmental activist Manuel Terán, also known as Tortuguita, during a sweep of the park. Protesters had been camping there as they rallied against the training center being built next door.
A couple of months later, the entire park was officially closed to the public, even though most of it still belonged to the county. Then-DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond issued an executive order citing public safety concerns in March of 2023 as the protests continued.
The park is still closed.
Future of Intrenchment Creek Park remains uncertain
Commissioners Terry and LaDena Bolton said they still see a future for Intrenchment Creek Park: One in which it’s a community gathering space again, connected to bike and walking paths that link neighborhoods throughout DeKalb County.
Bolton said that’s still possible despite the recent history here, of the failed land swap, the protests, the killing of Terán and the construction of the controversial Atlanta Public Safety Training Center next door. She said she could even imagine embracing it.
“That’s a part of why folks like to go visit different monuments and natural spaces, because they want to know the history and the transition from where we came from to where we’re going,” she said.
The park, the commissioners said, is important in a neighborhood that’s seen truck lots, warehouses and industrial uses grow over the years. They say that in the future, it can anchor even more green space in the area.
Even if the other commissioners join Terry and Bolton in this vision, the commissioners clarified it’s ultimately up to DeKalb County staff and the county’s legal team to take action.
But for many residents, DeKalb’s choices with the land swap have left a sour taste in their mouths.
Joe Peery, who lives a couple miles away, used to lead hikes through Intrenchment Creek Park.
“Sort of the highlights of, like, here’s this beautiful, you know, old growth tree. Here’s a place where a lot of wildlife is,” he said.
The hikes got more popular after the land swap and the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center next door, which caused interest in the park to balloon.
Peery said the swap, to him, always felt uneven; the people making the deal didn’t seem to see the value in those 40 acres that he and his neighbors did. The whole ordeal has him considering leaving southeast Atlanta altogether — it just doesn’t seem the same without the park he’s walked thousands of times.
For Peery, the timelines are fuzzy. The closures, the protests, the politics and the convoluted legal drama blend together. But he said at the end, his trust in leadership has waned.
“I lost so much respect for a lot of those people at the county level — like, you kind of screwed us. We told you it was coming, and you act like, ‘Oh, surprise,’ when he [Millsap] just turned around and sold you out,” Peery said.
After years, Peery said the county still has no park and no explanation for residents on how it plans to resolve the situation.
And the man behind the deal is now running for public office.
