Buckhead Park Over 400 Could Be Reality By 2025
Buckhead could have a public park spanning across Georgia 400 — perhaps the first of its kind in Metro Atlanta — by 2025.
A group called HUB404 Conservancy Inc. launched officially earlier this week to raise capital for its vision of a 9-acre, half-mile green space and community gathering hub that would link Buckhead's Path400 pedestrian way and both MARTA's Buckhead stations.
According to the group, the park could begin construction in 2022 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony by 2025. While officials with Hub404 did not disclose a price tag, previous estimates pinned its price tag upward of $250M.
The new group is chaired by Jay Gould, the CEO of Atlanta-based Interface, a commercial flooring company.
“The project is poised to move forward quickly now that the foundational work of establishing HUB404 Conservancy, Inc. has been completed,” Gould said in a release. "During the past six months, the board has better defined the project and created a brand framework that conveys to the larger public and institutional audiences what the initiative is seeking to achieve and why.
“We are now moving quickly to raise funds for the next phase of engineering and design work needed to begin actual construction, with a target for completion and ribbon cutting of 2025,” he said.
The Buckhead Community Improvement District, with help from a Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank grant, gathered survey data to design the boundaries and subsurface geotechnical data related to the park's planned construction.
HUB404 is one of three planned parks that could potentially deck over Atlanta interstates, making the surrounding areas greener and more pedestrian-friendly.
Downtown Atlanta boosters are promoting the idea of a $300M Stitch park that would cover a mile of Interstate 75/85 from Spring Street to Georgia Power's current headquarters on Ralph McGill Boulevard. And Midtown stakeholders, led by Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, are proposing another $250M park that would cover portions of the Downtown Connector near North Avenue. For HUB404, the next task will be raising the money.
“As plans and funding progress, the HUB404 Conservancy will be reaching out to diverse communities throughout Atlanta to cooperatively develop the programming within the park, attracting people from throughout Atlanta for shared experiences,” the new group said in its announcement.
