As the Piedmont Park Conservancy celebrates its 35th anniversary, the park is gearing up for its first comprehensive master plan in over 25 years. Conservancy leaders said the organization is celebrating the past while starting to think about the future.
The last time Atlanta’s “crown jewel” saw a comprehensive plan was in 1995, and it has been mostly implemented in the years since. The previous changes, alongside a well-established conservancy set the stage to tackle a plan for the next few decades of the park.
“With us turning 35 and looking back and celebrating the past and committing to the park now, the next obvious phase was starting to think about the park’s future,” Piedmont Park Conservancy President and CEO Doug Widener said.
Landscape Architect agency Nelson Byrd Woltz will develop the plan alongside Atlanta-based firm Perez Planning + Design over the next several months. It’s a multi-phase approach split into three-month chunks.
Currently, Piedmont Park is in phase one: research and discovery. Widener said the team has been gathering historical context and hosting public input meetings at events alongside small-group gatherings with “key stakeholders” in the park and city officials.
The goal is to gather as much input on what the park needs before moving into phase two, the development of planning concepts and the final phase of comprehensive planning. After that the plan will need approval from the City of Atlanta before the conservancy can start fundraising to pay for projects.
Current timelines aim for city approvals by early 2025. But first, the team of designers needs to figure out what the people want for Piedmont Park.
Conservancy President Widener and a team of planners and designers from Nelson Byrd Woltz and Perez Planning & Design sat down with SaportaReport on Oct. 15 to talk about early findings on park needs and future goals for the city’s “beating green heart.”
Perez Planning & Design urban planner Nick Stephens said most of the people he talks to initially just say they think the park is great. Pushing further reveals a need for basic improvements, though.
“That’s when you hear about what I think are really kind of the fundamentals of any park, which is that kind of essential infrastructure,” Stephens said. “Which is unfortunately, I think, lacking in some ways.”
Stephens said a lot of it comes down to safety and accessibility — making sure the roads are maintained and well lit so people don’t get hurt, restrooms that welcome everyone and drinking fountains that work.
Thomas Woltz, owner and senior principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz, emphasized the detail-oriented approach.
“In many cases, it’s not looking for heroic new installations in the park, but rather some humble things like improved maintenance, stormwater resilience, and subtle signals to visitors about inclusivity that everyone is welcome here,” Woltz said.
On the comment board where residents can put in suggestions for Piedmont Park, some posters sounded off about maintenance. “Herve” asked for more clean benches and toilets as well as better playgrounds.
Small changes aren’t the only element, though. The park may soon expand to Monroe Drive and Piedmont Avenue in some places, and the conservancy plans to restore Lake Clara in the heart of the park.
Nelson Byrd Woltz urban planner John Tatro said the team also wants to look at what the park was originally designed for compared to “who we are designing for” today. He pointed to the web of roads throughout the park that were meant for cars. The park is mostly car-free today, but the roads remain.
“It makes it feel the hierarchy is cars first, then pedestrians second,” Tatro said.
Widener said the main themes for the master plan are “access, equity, safety” and a truly democratic park approach.
“How do we as a conservancy take a really good park and get a great park, a world class park?” Widener asked.
Piedmont Park is simultaneously a regional park and a neighborhood park, which creates some challenges in addressing the needs of everyone who visits. Woltz said it comes down to both design and policy.
One issue shared by some public commenters and the urban planners is the frequency of free and paid events at Piedmont Park. Thousands of people pour onto the grounds for events like Music Midtown, the Atlanta Pride Festival, the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival and Atlanta Black Pride.
It’s a packed roster and often shuts down the park to people passing by for days on end. Before and after each event, the paths are full of equipment and trucks hauling stage and tent components. It also causes damage — fields get muddy, sprinkler systems get damaged and tree roots can have long-term problems.
Woltz said the park needs to make “values based decisions on what the carrying capacity of the park is on an annual basis.”
It’s a tough task, since the mayor and city government has jurisdiction over many of the events. But Woltz and Widener stressed the current government officials have been open to discussion, and the plan isn’t to stop events entirely.
“It’s never going to be a “no: to events, but it’s about the frequency,” Woltz said.
Piedmont Park is both the city’s responsibility and the conservancy’s domain, which causes some confusion around the frequent events and basic maintenance. The conservancy’s memorandum of understanding with the city has evolved to give more responsibility to the nonprofit over the years.
But if a sink is ripped off of the restroom wall, the conservancy has to put in a maintenance request with the city. Widener hopes the master planning process will streamline and clarify who controls parts of the park.
“We want to take on more things, to be clear,” Widener said. “But we also need to see the city continuing to invest in assets that are theirs, including the parks.”
Nelson Byrd Woltz assistant principal Lanie McKinnon is less worried about the regional and local distinction, though.
“If you remove events from the question, regional vs. neighborhood — the experience of coming to the park is pretty universal,” McKinnon said.
Keep advertising out of the park Coke signs on garbage cans signs on lampposts and signage stuck in the ground
I am glad the early findings include the need for improvement of basic amenities like water fountains, bathrooms, lighting, and benches. Kudos to the planning team!